











fks ^5\ ~ 

Rnn k T' 5 2 i 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 


copy 'i. 

Qsm 








% 



HAUNTED HOUSES 
FLAMMARION 













/ 

HAUNTED HOUSES 

By CAMILLE FLAMMARION 

Author of “DREAMS OF AN ASTRONOMER,” Etc. 



D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
NEW YORK * * MCMXXIV 





BFI4U 

.F^ 

192 . 1 ^ 

CLd ^ 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


PRINTED IN THE TTNTTER STATES OE AMERICA 


. dlJl. -5 ’24 - 

a3c1A800090 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Introductory. 1 


Spiritualism and Materialism 
A Reply to Camille Saint-Saens 

I. Experimental Proofs of Survival . . 20 

Preliminary Reply to Certain Criticisms 
Ascertaining the Facts 
Blind Prejudiced Denials 
Laplace and the Calculus of Probabilities 
The Choice of Precise Observations 

II. Haunted Houses: A First Survey of 

the Subject. 70 

Truth and Falsehood 
Proved Realities 

Ancient and Contemporary Observations 
Legal Recognition of Haunted Houses 
Broken Leases 

Certainty of Phenomena of Haunting 


III. Strange Phenomena in a Calvados 

Castle. 112 

IV. The Haunted House of La Constan- 

tinie (Correze). 134 

V 





Vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

V. Hauntings: Ancient and Modeen . 145 

A Disturbed House in Auvergne 
A Psychic Incident in Monaco 
Physical Phenomena and Deaths 
Death and Clocks 

VI. Mystekious Noises at a Paesonage . 161 

The Teacher’s House 
An Invisible Companion 

VII. The Fantastic Villa of Comeada, 

Coimbea (Poetugal) .... 185 

VIII. Cheeboueg Obseevations : What Is the 

Auea of a Dwelling? .... 197 

Dr. Nichols and the Fatal Room 
The Maleficent Ceiling of Oxford 
The Cambridge Obsession 
Pierre Loti’s Mosque at Rochefort 

IX. A Geneeal Excuesion among Haunted 

Houses. 213 

X. Classification of Phenomena . . 280 

Hauntings Associated with the Dead 

XI. Haunting Phenomena Not Atteibu- 

TABLE TO THE Dead .323 

Rapping Spirits 
Poltergeist 


XII. Spueious Haunted Houses . 


. 338 



CONTENTS 


Vll 


XIII. The Search for Causes. 

Origin and Mode of Production of Phe¬ 
nomena of Haunting 
The Fifth Element 

Epilogue—The Unknown of Yesterday Is 
the Truth of To-morrow . 

Progress Surrounded by Obstacles 
Lavoisier’s Report to the Academy of Sci¬ 
ences on Meteorites 


PAGE 

340 


379 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


INTRODUCTORY 

SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM: A REPLY TO 
CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS 

S INCE, in spite of the most decisive observa¬ 
tions, the battle between psychists and anti- 
psychists is still raging, it seems to me that the 
following article, published in the Nouvelle Revue 
of December 15, 1900, may usefully be prefaced to 
this book, especially as it presents the arguments of 
the two opposed camps side by side. My friend, 
Camille Saint-Saens, had just published an article 
extolling the faculties of the brain as opposed to the 
theory of a personal soul. On comparing the terms 
of this article with the letters published in La Mort 
et son Mystere (vol. ii, p. 34, and iii, p. 8) it will be 
seen that in the nineteenth century we had not yet 
become intimate friends. In spite of our different 
points of view, our relations became more and more 
cordial until his death, which took place on December 
16, 1921. Seekers after truth who keep their mental 
independence may learn to esteem and love each 
other in spite of their differences of opinion. They 
are incapable of intolerance. This article, written 
in the last year of last century, forms a fitting pro¬ 
logue to what follows: 

My dear Friend, 

I have just read your well-informed and at¬ 
tractive article in the Nouvelle Revue —a little late 

l 


2 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


in the day, perhaps, but, as you know, I spend more 
time in the Heavens than on Earth—and it struck 
me like one of those powerful symphonies of which 
you have the secret, and in which science and art 
compete to produce in our minds the maximum effect. 
You seem in this article to touch but lightly on the 
subject under discussion, but in reality you show us 
glimpses of all its depths. 

You are absolutely right in saying that the words 
spiritualism and materialism are really only words 
nowadays, since the essence of things is unknown 
to us, and since recent scientific discoveries base the 
visible world upon an invisible world, which forms, 
so to speak, its substratum. I thank you for having 
drawn attention to my modest excursion into the 
domain of the “ Unknown,’ ’ but I ask your permis¬ 
sion to reply to your interpretation. You seem to 
fear that the etymology of the word “psychic” had 
influenced my mind. The facts marshalled in my 
book do not, according to you, establish the existence 
of a soul. The facts, which, with good reason, you 
accept as authentic, would only prove this: “That 
the unknown force which produces thought has the 
power of projecting itself beyond the limits of the 
body, so that a brain might act on other brains at a 
distance. It does not follow that this force has a 
spiritual nature independent of the brain.’ ’ 

That is the argument I should like to examine and 
dissect. 

Let us, if you please, take a fact and analyse it. 
A young woman, Mile. Z., brought to my office in 
Paris the following story, in which I suppress the 
names: 

On the day of our first meeting I was twenty years of age 
and he was thirty-two. Our relation lasted seven years, 
and we loved each other tenderly. 

One day my friend told me sorrowfully that his circum- 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 3 


stances, his poverty, etc., obliged him to marry; and among 
his embarrassed explanations I perceived a vague desire 
that our relation should not thereby be altogether broken off. 

I cut short this painful interview; and, in spite of my 
great sorrow, I did not see my friend again, as I had no 
wish, in my unique and absolute love, to share this man I 
loved so much willingly with another. 

I heard afterwards indirectly that he was married and 
the father of a child. 

Some years after this marriage, on a night of April, 1893, 
I saw a human form entering my room. The form, tall in 
appearance, was enveloped in a white veil, which hid nearly 
the whole of the face. I saw with terror how it advanced 
and bent over me. I felt its lips touching mine. But what 
lips! I shall never forget the impression they made upon 
me. I felt no pressure, nor movement, nor warmth, only 
cold—the cold of a dead mouth! 

Yet I felt a relief and a sense of well-being during this 
long kiss, but never during this vision did the name or the 
image of my lost lover present themselves to my spirit. 
After waking up I did not think of my dream, until, to¬ 
wards noon, I happened to look at a paper and read: “We 
hear from X. that the funeral took place yesterday of 
M. Y.” (here followed the description of the deceased). 
The article ended by attributing the death to an attack of 
typhoid fever, caused by the overstrain of conscientious 
work. 

“Dear friend,’’ I thought, “when you were released from 
worldly conventions you came to me to tell me that you had 
loved me, and would still love me after death. I thank you, 
and I love you still. ’ ’ 

Mlle. Z. 

That is the fact as it took place. The old and con¬ 
venient hypothesis of a simple hallucination no 
longer satisfies us to-day. What we must explain is 
the coincidence of the death with the apparition. 
Manifestations of this kind are so numerous that the 
coincidences can no longer be regarded as fortuitous, 
but must be taken to indicate a cause and effect. 


4 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Both you and I, being free from prejudice, admit 
that Mile. Z. saw and perceived the presence of her 
lover at the critical moment of his departure from 
this world. Hundreds of examples of the same kind 
exist. But our interpretations differ. You only see 
a cerebral action of a dying person. I see a psychic 
action. 

(I asked myself whether the narrator might have 
seen the paper the night before without remembering 
it, and whether the association of ideas had pro¬ 
duced her dream, but she assures me it was only the 
next day that she read the paper. That hypothesis 
must, therefore, be excluded. There had been a real 
communication between the two beings.) 

It is, of course, always difficult to distinguish be¬ 
tween that work which belongs to the spirit or the 
soul from that which belongs to the brain, and in our 
appreciations and judgments we are naturally 
guided by the inner feeling produced in us by the 
discussion of the phenomena. Now have we not in 
this case what is essentially a manifestation of the 
spirit? Two hypotheses present themselves. Either 
the lover, as indicated by the narrative, was already 
dead when he acted thus, or he was still alive, and 
at the moment of death this man thought of that 
woman, of his friend of sunnier days, and felt a 
regret, a remorse perhaps, and possibly a hope for 
the Beyond. That telepathic communication was 
perhaps not perceived at once during the daily rou¬ 
tine, but was postponed to the hours of sleep and 
tranquillity. It was not, of course, a case of a 
phantom transported from one city to another. It 
was a mental transmission, of which wireless teleg¬ 
raphy furnishes us a physical image. The distance 
was sixty-two miles, and we know that such a dis¬ 
tance does not count. 

The mental communication took the form de- 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 5 


scribed by the narrator. Such is the impression made 
by an examination of all the facts, and it becomes 
more convincing as we advance in the study of these 
phenomena. Let us take another case: 

When a student at the University of Kieff, and already 
married, I had gone to spend the summer with my sister, 
who lived in the country not far from Pskow. While re¬ 
turning through Moscow, my beloved wife suddenly fell 
ill through influenza, and, in spite of her extreme youth, 
she was quickly broken up. Heart-failure, like a stroke 
of lightning, carried her off. 

I shall not attempt to describe my pain and my despair. 
But I must submit to your competent judgment a problem 
which I sincerely hope to have solved. 

My father lived at Pultowa. He knew nothing of the 
illness of his charming daughter-in-law, and knew that 
she was with me at Moscow. What was his surprise on 
seeing her beside him as he was leaving the house, and 
accompanying him for an instant! Seized with fear and 
anxiety, he at once sent us a telegram to assure himself 
of the health of my dear one. It was the day of her death. 

I should be grateful to you all my life for an explanation 
of this extraordinary fact. 

Wenecian Bililowsky 

21, nikolskaja, kieff. (Student of Medicine). 

Here, also, the observation was made after death. 

Have we not in this example also the impression 
of a non-material origin of the phenomenon, of a 
moral or mental cause, indicating not only the ex¬ 
istence of unknown faculties in the human being, 
but even the existence of an intelligent agent? I 
cannot find in this class of facts anything pertaining 
to anatomy, animal physiology, or organic chem¬ 
istry. 

Let us take another example, different from the 
two preceding ones, but still belonging to telepathy. 
This is the narrative: 


6 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


In the first days of November, 1869, I left Perpignan, 
my native town, to continue my pharmaceutical studies 
at Montpellier. My family consisted of my mother and 
my four sisters. I left them very happy and in perfect 
health. 

On the 22nd of the same month my sister Helene, a fine 
girl of eighteen, the youngest and the greatest favourite, 
assembled some girl-friends in her mother’s house. About 
three o ’clock in the afternoon they started with my mother 
for the Promenade des Plabanes. The weather was beau¬ 
tiful. After half an hour my sister was suddenly taken 
ill. “Mother,” she said, “I feel a queer shudder all 
over my body. I am cold, and my throat hurts me. Let 
us go home.” 

That night, at 5 a.m., 1 my beloved sister expired in my 
mother’s arms, strangled and laid low by an attack of 
diphtheria which two doctors were unable to master. 

I was the only man who could have represented the 
family at the funeral, and my family sent me one tele¬ 
gram after another to Montpellier. But by a terrible 
fatality, which I still deplore, none reached me in time. 

In the night from the 23rd to the 24th I had an awful 
hallucination. 

I had returned home at 2 a.m., with a light heart 
and full of the joy I had experienced in a pleasure party 
on the 22nd and 23rd. I went to bed feeling very gay, 
and was asleep in five minutes. 

About 4 a.m., I saw the face of my sister. It was 
deathly pale and bleeding, and a piercing cry, plaintive and 
unceasing, struck upon my ear: “What are you doing, 
my Louis? Do come. Do come.” 

In my nervous and agitated sleep I took a cab, but in 
spite of superhuman efforts I could not make it go. And 
still I saw my sister’s face and heard her voice in my 
ear: “Louis, what are you doing? Do come. Do come.” 

I awoke suddenly, my face congested, my head on fire, 
my throat dry, my breath was short and gasping, and I 
perspired profusely. I jumped out of bed, trying to com- 

iTlie hours have been corrected from the first narrative after 
careful examination. 





SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 7 


pose myself. An hour afterwards I lay down again, but 
could get no rest. 

At 11 a.m., I arrived at the refectory in a state of 
profound dejection. Questioned by my fellow-students I 
told them exactly what I had experienced. They chaffed 
me about it. At 2 p.m., I went to the Faculty, hoping 
to pull myself together over some work. 

Coming out of the lecture I saw a woman in deep 
mourning coming towards me. She raised her veil and I 
recognised my eldest sister. Feeling anxious about me, she 
had come, in spite of her distress, to find out what had 
become of me. She told me of the fatal event which nothing 
could have led me to expect, since I had had the best 
news of my family on the morning of the 22nd. 

I assure you on my honour that this story is absolutely 
true. I express no opinion, but only state facts. 

Twenty years have passed, but the impression is still 
vivid, especially now, and if the features of my Helene 
do not appear with the same clearness, I still hear her 
plaintive, oft-repeated, and despairing cry: “ Que fais-tu 
done, mon Louist Mais viens done , mais viens done.” 

Louis Noell 
(Pharmacist at Cette). 

There is the narrative of the psychic phenomenon. 
If you, my dear friend, do not feel that the body 
of the dead girl, twenty-three hours after her death, 
cannot have caused the impression; that there was 
something apart from the material organism; that, 
whether M. Noell ’s spirit was wafted in his sleep 
to his dead sister, or that some telepathic action 
emanated from her, we are face to face with an action 
of the soul and not of the body; that we are driven 
to think of the soul as personally existing, and not 
as an effect, a function, or a secretion of the brain: 
if you do not feel that, it is because you, the artist 
and thinker whom I know, have not given yourself 
time to weigh the problem. 

What do you suppose the girl’s brain did after 


8 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


her death? Any “material” hypothesis is improb¬ 
able. We might suppose that she called her brother 
before her death, and that the call remained latent 
in her brother ’s spirit until an hour of quiet enabled 
his brain to perceive it. On the other hand, we may 
suppose that the appeal was made after her death. 
We must consider everything. 

The simplest expedient would be to deny, and to 
declare that the young student simply had a night¬ 
mare which accidentally coincided with the death 
of his sister. That is indeed very simple. But does it 
satisfy you? Does it satisfy you when you are faced 
with hundreds of cases of the same kind? Does it 
satisfy you also in the cases where the narrator 
has “seen” at a distance all the details of a death, 
a suicide, an accident, or a tire? No. You have too 
scientific and rational a mind to be satisfied with 
this old hypothesis of chance, and you know that the 
calculus of probability renders it inacceptable. What 
then? 

Then it follows that the psychic problem is set, 
and we may as well acknowledge it. 

I do not claim to explain it. Science has not ad¬ 
vanced so far. To admit and to explain it are two 
different things. We are forced to admit the facts 
even when we cannot explain them. A man passes 
the corner of a street and gets a flower-pot on his 
head. He is bound to admit the fact without guess¬ 
ing at once how it came about, and how the hori¬ 
zontal and vertical just met at the point occupied by 
his head. 

No indeed, what we call matter and its properties 
does not suffice to explain these facts, and therefore 
they are of another order, of an order which we 
have every right to call “psychic,” and which leads 
us to admit the existence of souls, spirits, intelligent 
spiritual beings, which are not simply cerebral func- 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 9 


tions. Do not the phenomena of mental transmis¬ 
sion, of seeing at a distance without eyes, of seeing 
things yet to come—do not these bear the same 
testimony? 

Mental transmission is beyond doubt, notably be¬ 
tween a hypnotiser and his subject. I could recall a 
thousand examples. Here is one, surely free from 
sentiment, but very characteristic, cited by Dr. Ber¬ 
trand, most competent of experimenters in this field: 

A hypnotiser, much imbued with mystical ideas, had a 
somnambulist who during his sleep only saw angels and 
spirits of every kind. These visions confirmed the hypnotiser 
more and more in his religious belief. As he always quoted 
the dreams of his somnambulist in favour of his system, 
another hypnotiser of his acquaintance undertook to dis¬ 
illusion him by proving to him that his somnambulist had 
the visions described solely because their prototype existed 
in his own head. In proof of this, he undertook to let 
the somnambulist witness a reunion of the angels of para¬ 
dise sitting at table and eating a turkey! 

He therefore hypnotised the somnambulist, and after a 
time asked him whether he did not see anything extraor¬ 
dinary. He replied that he saw a great assembly of angels. 
“And what are they doing V 9 asked the hypnotiser. “They 
are sitting round a table eating.’’ But he could not tell 
the dish of which they were partaking. 

That is an example of mental suggestion, of which 
you know many cases. The will of the hypnotiser 
acts upon the subject without the aid of words. We 
can, of course, call it the action of one brain upon 
another, but does it not seem as if the brain were 
only an instrument of the will? I should not con¬ 
gratulate the brain upon its thought any more than 
I should congratulate a telescope upon its view of 
Saturn. Is not the brain the organ of thought as 
the eye is the organ of sight? 

And what about seeing at a distance, or in dreams? 


10 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Does it not bring ns face to face with a spiritual 
being endowed with special faculties? A mariner 
writes to me from Brest: 

From 1870 to 1874 I had a brother employed at the 
arsenal of Foochow, in China, as a fitter. A friend of his, 
a mechanic who came from the same town (Brest), and 
was also employed at the Foochow arsenal, came one morn¬ 
ing to see my brother at his lodgings, and told him the 
following story: “My dear friend, I am much upset. 
I dreamt last night that my little child died of croup on 
a red eiderdown.” My brother ridiculed his fears, spoke 
of nightmares, and in order to dissipate the impression 
invited his friend to lunch. But nothing could divert him. 
For him his child was dead. 

The first letter he received from France after that event 
was from his wife announcing the death of their child 
from croup after great suffering, and, strangely enough, 
on a red eiderdown, on the very night of the dream. 

On receipt of this letter he showed it, weeping, to my 
brother, from whom I heard the story. 

Do not such facts, which are very numerous, in¬ 
dicate something in man other than the body? 

And what do you think of this vision? 

My father had a friend of his youth, General Charpentier 
de Cossigny, who had always evinced much affection to¬ 
wards me. As he had a nervous trouble, which rendered his 
humour very eccentric, we were never surprised at his 
paying us several visits in quick succession, and then 
ceasing to visit us for months. In November, 1892 (we 
had not seen him for about three months), I had a sick 
headache and went to bed early. I had just begun to 
doze when I heard my name, pronounced at first in a low 
tone, and then rather more loudly. I listened, thinking it 
was my father calling; but I heard him in the neigh¬ 
bouring room, and his breathing was very regular, as of a 
person asleep for some time. I dozed again, and had a 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 11 


dream. I saw the stairs of the house where the general 
lived (7, Cite Yaneau). He appeared leaning on the 
handrail of the first-floor landing. He descended, came to 
me, and kissed me on the forehead. His lips were so cold 
that the touch woke me up. I then saw distinctly in the 
middle of the room, with the light of the street lamp, 
the fine, tall outline of the general as it receded. I was 
not asleep, as I heard eleven o’clock strike on the Lycee 
Henri IY. and counted the strokes. I could not get to 
sleep, and the cold impression of the lips of our old friend 
remained on my forehead all night. In the morning, the 
first word to my mother was: “We shall hear some news 
of General de Cossigny; I saw him last night.” 

A few minutes afterwards my father saw in the paper 
the news of the death of his old comrade, which happened 
the previous evening as the consequence of a fall downstairs. 
None of us had seen the paper. 

Jean Dreuilhe. 

36, RUE DES BOULANGERS, PARIS. 

As in the previous case, and all similar ones, it is 
difficult to deny that the spirit sees at a distance. 
It is neither the eye, nor the retina, nor the optic 
nerve, nor the brain. 

You must also have heard of the case of Marshal 
Serrano, as told by his wife: 

For twelve long months a grave malady, which eventually 
proved fatal, undermined the life of my husband. Feeling 
that the end was near, his nephew, General Lopez Domin¬ 
guez, went to the Prime Minister, Senor Canovas, to obtain 
permission to bury Serrano in a church like the other 
Marshals. 

The King, then at the Prado, refused the request of 
General Lopez Dominguez. But he added that he would 
prolong his stay in the royal demesne so that his presence 
in Madrid should not hinder the rendering of military 
honours due to the rank of the dead Marshal and to his 
place in the army. 


12 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


The sufferings of the Marshal increased every day. He 
could no longer lie down, but remained always in an easy 
chair. 

One morning at dawn my husband, who was entirely 
paralysed owing to the use of morphia, and who could not 
move without the help of several assistants, suddenly rose 
alone, strong and upright, and in a more resounding voice 
than he had had in all his life cried in the silence of the 
night: ‘ ‘ Let an orderly officer mount his horse and ride to 
the Prado; the King is dead! ’ ’ 

He fell back exhausted in his chair. We all thought of 
delirium, and hastened to give him a calming draught. 
He dozed off, but some minutes afterwards he rose again. 
With a weak and almost sepulchral voice he said: “My 
uniform, my sword; the King is dead!” It was his last 
flicker of life. After receiving, with the last sacrament, 
the Pope’s benediction, he expired. Alphonse II. died 
without those consolations. 

This sudden vision of the King’s death by a dying man 
is true. The next morning all Madrid learned with con¬ 
sternation of the death of the King, who was almost alone 
at the Prado. 

The royal corpse was taken to Madrid. Owing to this 
circumstance Serrano could not receive the promised hon¬ 
ours. It is well known that when the King is in his palace 
at Madrid all honours are solely for him, even after his 
death, as long as his body is there. 

Was it the King himself who appeared to my husband? 
How did he learn the news? There is some matter for 
reflection. 

Countess de Serrano 
(Duchess de la Torre). 

Here we have a man at the point of death, and 
doubly disabled by the use of morphia, announcing 
an unexpected death unknown to anybody. Here 
again, how can we escape the conclusion that his 
soul, his spirit, perceived in some way what had 
happened! 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 13 


Seeing at a distance, especially in dreams and in 
somnambulism, is proved by such a considerable 
number of observations that it is incontestable. I 
cannot find in it an argument in favour of hypotheses 
called materialistic. On the contrary, I find in every 
case an argument for a psychic state endowed with 
special faculties. 

But what will you say of premonitory dreams and 
of the accurate spiritual prevision of events which 
have not yet happened? It is with these I may fit¬ 
tingly crown this reply. 

Take the following dream, commonplace enough, 
and ill-adapted to transcendental philosophical 
theories: 


I was going to college as an external student, and in 
my dream I saw myself crossing the Place de la Republique 
in Paris with a novel under my arm, when, just in front 
of the Magasins du Pauvre-Jacques, a dog passed me 
pursued by a horde of boys, who maltreated it. I saw 
their precise number. It was eight. The employees were 
beginning to display the goods, and a greengrocer woman 
passed with her cart full of fruits and flowers. 

Next morning, on going to the college, I saw in the 
same place the scene which I had seen in my dream. 
Nothing was wanting. There was the dog in the gutter, 
the eight urchins pursuing it; the greengrocer woman 
passed with her cart going up to the Boulevard Voltaire, 
and the employees of the Pauvre-Jacques arranging their 
goods in the shops. 

D. Hannais. 

10, AVENUE LAGACHE, VILLEMONBLE, SEINE. 

If the brain, a physical organ, is capable, with all 
its imaginable secretions, of thus perceiving all the 
details of an event which has not yet happened, we 
must suppress in our Institute the Academy of Moral 


14 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Sciences and replace it by the Academy of Medicine 
or, even more simply, by any clinic. 

To see the future! Are we not there in pure 
psychism? Bear in mind that these premonitory 
dreams are not very rare either. I have quoted a 
number of them; I know many others. Do you re¬ 
member this one, told to me by the father of the 
charming pensioner of the second Theatre Frangais ? 

In 1869, at the time of the plebiscite, I had a dream, 
or, rather, a terrible nightmare. 

In this nightmare I saw myself as a soldier. We were 
at war, and I underwent all the trials of a soldier’s life— 
marching, hunger, and thirst. I heard the words of com¬ 
mand, the fusillade, the cannon shots. I saw the dead and 
wounded falling around me, and heard their cries. 

Suddenly I found myself in a country and in a village 
where we had to sustain a terrible attack of the enemy. 
There were Prussians and Bavarians and some cavalry 
(Baden Dragoons). Please note that I had never seen 
these uniforms, and that there was no question of war 
at the time. At a certain moment I saw one of our officers 
mounting a steeple with a field-glass to ascertain the move¬ 
ments of the enemy. He then descended, gave the word to 
sound the charge, and flung us with fixed bayonets on 
to a Prussian battery. 

At this moment of my dream, fighting hand to hand 
with the artillerymen of that battery, I saw one of them 
aim a sabre-cut at my head. It was such a fierce cut that 
it split my head in two. I then woke up, and found myself 
out of bed, with a sharp pain in my head. In falling out 
of bed I had knocked my head against a small stove. 

On October 6, 1870, this dream came true: the village, 
the school, the mairie, the church, our commander ascend¬ 
ing the steeple to inspect the enemy position, descending, 
and, to the sound of “charge,” throwing us and our 
bayonets on to the Prussian guns. In my dream at that 
moment I had had my head split with a sabre-cut. In 
reality I expected the same, but I only received a blow 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 15 


with a mop, probably intended for my head, which, how¬ 
ever, I warded off, so that it struck me on my right thigh. 

R^gnier 

(Retired Sergeant-Major of the Neuilly 
Company of Francs-tireurs). 

23, RUE JEANNE-HACHETTE, 

HAVRE. 

We might suppose, with Alfred Maury, that the 
shock produced the dream, but this hypothesis has 
nothing to do with premonition. 

It is often objected that such dreams have been 
modified and arranged after the event, though quite 
sincerely, in the imagination of the narrators. Of 
course, it is quite possible that diverse modifications 
may be produced in the remembrance. But this ob¬ 
jection is demolished by the observer ’s own impres¬ 
sion, for it is just the impression of having seen 
it before which strikes him most. Besides, some are 
so simple that no modification is possible. For in¬ 
stance : 

I dreamt that I was going on an errand on my bicycle, 
when a dog ran across the road and I fell down, breaking 
the pedal of the machine. 

In the morning I told my mother of my dream, and, 
knowing how often my dreams had come true, she induced 
me to stay at home. I made up my mind not to go out; 
but about eleven o’clock, as we were about to have a 
meal, the postman brought a letter, saying that my sister, 
who lived five miles away, had fallen ill. Forgetting my 
dream, and only anxious to have news of my sister, I 
hurried over my lunch and started off on my bicycle. I 
proceeded without a mishap until I came to the place 
where I had seen myself the previous night rolling in the 
dust and breaking my machine. Hardly had my dream 
occurred to me when an enormous dog suddenly jumped 
out of a neighbouring farm and tried to bite my leg. 


16 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Without reflecting I tried to kick him, but at that moment 
I lost my balance and rolled over on my machine, breaking 
the pedal, and thus realising every detail of my dream. 
Please note that this was, at least, the hundredth time I 
had ridden that way without having met with the slightest 
accident until then. 

Am£d£e Basset 
(Notary at Vitrac, Charente). 


And the following: 

In 1868, when I was seventeen, I was employed by an 
uncle who was a grocer at 32, Rue Saint-Roch. One morn¬ 
ing, while still under the influence of a dream, he told 
me that in that dream he was on his doorstep, when, 
looking in the direction of the Rue Neuve-des-Petits- 
Champs, he saw approaching him a town omnibus of the 
Northern Railway Company, which stopped in front of his 
shop. His mother alighted from it and the omnibus drove 
on, taking away another lady who sat in the omnibus with 
his grandmother. The lady was dressed in black, and held 
a basket in her lap. 

We both laughed at this dream, so far removed from 
reality, for never had my grandmother ventured to come 
alone from the Gare du Nord to the Rue Saint-Roch. 
Living near Beauvais, when she wanted to spend some 
time with her children in Paris, she preferred to write 
to my uncle and he met her at the station, whence he 
always brought her home in a cab. 

Well, on the afternoon of that day, as my uncle stood 
watching the passers-by from his doorstep, his eyes glanced 
mechanically towards the corner of the Rue Neuve-des- 
Petits-Champs, and he saw an omnibus of the Northern 
Railway Company turning the corner and stopping at his 
shop. 

In the omnibus were two ladies, one of them my grand¬ 
mother, who alighted, while the vehicle continued on its 
journey with the other lady, whom he had seen in his 
dream, and who was dressed in black and held a basket 
on her knees. 


SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 17 


Imagine the general astonishment! My grandmother 
thinking to surprise us, and my uncle telling her of his 
dream! 

Paul Leroux. 

LE NEUBOURG, EURE. 

I make an end of these witnesses, because one 
need only bend down to pick up as many as one 
could wish for. The most precise and positive sci¬ 
ences are only established on conclusions from our 
reasoning, and Astronomy itself, that queen among 
the sciences, is based upon the theory of gravitation, 
of wdiich Newton, its founder, said simply: “Things 
happen as if the heavenly bodies attracted each 
other directly in proportion to their masses, and 
inversely as the squares of their distances apart.” 
Well, face to face with the phenomena of telepathy, 
with the examples of mental vision at a distance, 
without the aid of corporeal organs, with the still 
more mysterious and incomprehensible fact of seeing 
the future in accurate detail with spiritual eyes, 
I say: “Things happen as if, in the human organ¬ 
ism, there existed a psychic, spiritual entity, en¬ 
dowed with perceptive faculties as yet unknown.” 
This entity, this soul or spirit, acts and perceives 
through the brain, but it is not a material function 
of a material organ. This seems to me a logical 
conclusion arrived at by a sound and exact method. 
It seems to me superior both to negations and affir¬ 
mations devoid of proof and founded on blind faith. 
Faith, the so-called miracles, even martyrdom, have 
never proved anything, for they have been at the 
service of all causes, both political and religious, 
even the most varied and contradictory, and some¬ 
times the most absurd. Science alone can really 
enlighten humanity. 


Camille Flammarion. 


18 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Such is the article which I published in the last 
year of last century, nearly a quarter of a century 
ago. As I said before, my friend Saint-Saens did 
not bear me a grudge for this opposition to his 
system. On the contrary, for our relations became 
more intimate and our friendship closer. He did 
not change his opinions, but he was not unaware of 
psychic phenomena, as proved by the following letter 
of July, 1921: 

On reading for the wth time your last volume 2 a memory 
arises, and I shall not wait till to-morrow before com¬ 
municating it to you. 

It was in January, 1871, on the last day of the war. 
I was at an outpost of Arcueil-Cachan. We had just dined 
off an excellent horse, of which we had made a stew with 
dandelions we had gathered ourselves. Our dinner had 
entirely satisfied us, and we were as gay as one could be 
in similar circumstances, when I suddenly heard in my 
head a plaintive musical theme of dolorous chords—which 
I have since used for the commencement of my Requiem — 
and I felt in my inmost being a presentiment of some 
misfortune. A profound anxiety unnerved me. 

That was the very moment when Henri Regnault was 
killed, to whom I was very much attached. The news 
of his death caused me such grief that I fell ill, and had 
to remain three days in bed. 

I thus proved the reality of * 1 telepathy ’ ’ before the 
word was invented. You are indeed right in saying that 
classic science does not know the human being, and that 
we have everything to learn. 

Camille Saint-Saens. 

I cannot but repeat here what I wrote to my 
illustrious friend: 

You are the mightiest of musicians, the glory of the 
Institute, one of the profoundest thinkers of our time— 
but you are not logical. 


2 La mort et son mystkre, vol. ii. 




SPIRITUALISM AND MATERIALISM 19 


And I found him all the more illogical because 
he had communicated to me his very characteristic 
personal observations, which I published in the same 
work (pp. 35, 36). 

Is it not the spirit which acts in these phenomena? 
How can we find in them the properties of matter? 
My readers know that these psychic phenomena are 
too frequent to be attributable to chance coincidence. 
Their reality is mathematically proved by the calcu¬ 
lus of probability. 

It seems to me that this bygone exchange of ideas 
between two independent searchers is a very fit 
prologue to the present volume. I may add that 
Saint-Saens himself gave an example of the inde¬ 
pendence of the soul relatively to the body. He died 
on December 16, 1921, aged 86 years. On the previ¬ 
ous 16th of October he had lunched at my table at 
the Juvisay Observatory, and we had all been 
charmed by his conversation; his spirit was as young 
as it had been at twenty, yet he complained of the 
failure of his organism, and could not ascend to the 
tower to observe Venus and Arcturus in the com¬ 
pany of our colleagues of the French Astronomical 
Society, including Prince Bonaparte, Count Gra- 
mont, Count de la Baume Pluvinel, General Ferrie, 
and other friends who had strongly insisted upon 
it. He suffered from his legs. At the same time, 
Le Menestrel published (October 21) an article full 
of the spirit of youth from his pen, on Berlioz. While 
his body perished his soul remained in full force. 
And such a difference between the physical and the 
spiritual element i§ not rare. 


CHAPTER I 

EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS OF SURVIVAL 


Preliminary reply to certain criticisms—Ascertaining the 
facts—Blind and prejudiced denials—Laplace and the 
calculus of probabilities—The choice of precise ob¬ 
servations . 

S ERIOUS and competent readers who know ex¬ 
actly the state of our problem, and appreciate 
the value of the results achieved towards its 
solution, will perhaps consider it superfluous if I 
devote the first chapter of this volume to the task of 
answering objections, devoid of intrinsic value, 
raised by uncompromising sceptics who do not want 
to admit the existence of metapsychic phenomena 
at any price. But it seems to me that a clear reply 
to these negations is not superfluous, for the mass 
of human beings is inevitably ignorant of these 
phenomena, and therefore disposed to pass them by. 
And if I but convinced one reader out of ten of the 
error of those blind critics, it would be rendering a 
signal service to general information. 

If we wish, by our own personal conviction, to 
acquire a rooted and permanent opinion concern¬ 
ing the reality, the nature, and the interest of 
psychic phenomena, we must first of all know that 
illusions of sight, of hearing, of touch, and, indeed, 
of all the senses, occur easily, and may be due to 
a thousand unexpected causes, so that we must 
guard against every possible error. Generally, we 
observe badly, we do not see below the surface, we 
20 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


21 


are content with mere approximations. The scien¬ 
tific method is here called for more than elsewhere 
if we personally desire a well-founded conviction. 
Once we have taken those preventive precautions, 
none of the opinions of millions of other people 
avail to impede our free appreciation of observed 
facts. Let that be understood once for all! 

As regards fraud, both conscious and unconscious, 
I have dealt with that in a long discussion (fifty 
pages) in my work Les Forces Naturelles Inconnues, 
so that I need not go over it again. 

I am inclined to think, with Emile Boirac, that 
the chief reason for the bias and mistrust encoun¬ 
tered by psychic science among some of our con¬ 
temporaries lies in the form in which it was origi¬ 
nally clothed, and from which it has not been suf¬ 
ficiently liberated. It was originally called Occult 
Science, or it at least formed part of that con¬ 
fused mass of empirical observations, traditions, 
hypotheses, and speculations which are known un¬ 
der that name, and which are mixed up with astrol¬ 
ogy, alchemy, chiromancy, magic, and other em¬ 
bryonic sciences of antiquity, of the Middle Ages, 
and of the Renaissance. It is barely two centuries 
since psychic science began to emerge from that 
mass, and among those who devote themselves to 
it there may remain some of the mystic spirit of 
the old adepts. It is one more reason why we should 
take care to introduce, with increasing ardour and 
vigour, the true spirit of modern science. It is thus 
that astronomy has finally arisen out of astrology, 
and chemistry out of alchemy, and neither one nor 
the other has retained the blemish of a sort of origi¬ 
nal sin. In the same way psychic science, cradled, 
so to speak, in magic and sorcery, deserves already, 
and will deserve more fully in the future, being 
described as an effective and positive science, 


22 HAUNTED HOUSES 

thanks to the steady employment of the experimen¬ 
tal method. 

Here we study the greatest of problems. The 
knowledge of the soul, the enquiry into our destiny, 
is an all-absorbing pursuit. A biographer has just 
said that if my life, after being devoted to the in¬ 
vestigation of the astronomical world and the dem¬ 
onstration of universal life, had only served to prove 
the existence of the human soul, it would have con¬ 
tributed to the progress of humanity. I devoutly 
hope so. 

We require careful discussion nowadays. The 
publication of the third volume of my metapsychic 
trilogy, Death and Its Mystery, which deals with 
manifestations “after death,” has raised a tempest 
of recriminations from ignorant publicists, some 
of whom, while apparently sincere and well-bal¬ 
anced, recover, like other people, lightly and irre¬ 
sponsibly, while others show signs of bad faith and 
acrimony, which is as strange as it is useless. 

Is it not astonishing? Our legitimate and natural 
wish to know the nature of the soul, to know 
whether it really has a personal existence, whether 
it survives the inevitable destruction of the body, 
that wish, I say, makes enemies and adversaries 
for us, who spend their ingenuity inventing a thou¬ 
sand obstacles to this free and independent re¬ 
search and in retarding it in every possible way! 
This systematic opposition is hardly conceivable, 
and yet it exists. 

It is opportune just now to examine the subject 
with special attention, applying the principles of the 
positive scientific method. Let us take up the dis¬ 
cussion at the original incidents which provoked it. 

On June 16, 1922, Le Journal did me the honour 
to publish at the head of its columns the following 
article I had sent in: 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


23 


Manifestations of the Dead 

Researches on the nature of the soul and its existence 
after death must be conducted according to the same 
method as is used in any other science, without prejudice 
or preconceived opinion, and apart from any sentimental 
or religious influence. Are there, or are there not, mani¬ 
festations of the dead? That is the question. Now I de¬ 
clare that there are. The Journal, to which I had the 
honour of contributing in the days of its founder, my 
spiritual friend Xau, having called attention to the so¬ 
lution of this long-standing problem, I bring before its 
readers one of two facts which have most convinced me 
of such a survival, and I defy the most sceptical of my 
antagonists to explain it without assuming an action by 
the deceased person. Let them try, indeed. 

There was an engineer who owned two factories, one in 
Glasgow, and the other in London. In his service in the 
Scottish factory there was a young lad called Robert 
Mackenzie, who was particularly devoted and bore a deep 
feeling of gratitude towards him. The employer did not 
live in Glasgow but in London. 

One evening, a Friday, the Glasgow workmen gave their 
annual ball. Robert Mackenzie, who had no taste for danc¬ 
ing, asked permission to serve at the refreshment stall. All 
went off well, and the entertainment was continued on the 
Saturday. 

On the next Tuesday evening a little before eight, in 
his house at Campden Hill, the engineer saw a manifesta¬ 
tion which he relates as follows: “I dreamt that I was 
sitting at a desk engaged in conversation with an unknown 
gentleman. Robert Mackenzie came towards me. Rather 
annoyed, I asked him whether he did not see that I was 
engaged. He retired with a dissatisfied air, then came 
again as if he strongly desired an immediate conversation. 
I reproached him even more rudely with his want of 
tact. Just then the person to whom I was talking took 
his leave, and Mackenzie advanced again. ‘What does this 
mean, Robert?’ I said in a tone of some irritation. ‘Don’t, 
you see that I was engaged?’ 


24 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


“ * Yes,’ he replied, ‘but I must speak to you at once?’ 

“‘What about? What is the hurry?’ 

“ ‘I wish to tell you, sir, that I am accused of something 
I did not do. I want you to know that and to forgive me 
for what they accuse me of, for I am innocent.’ Then he 
added: ‘ I did not do what they say I did. ’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ What is that ? ’ I asked. 

‘ ‘ He repeated the same words. Then I asked, naturally: 
‘How can I forgive you when you do not tell me what you 
are accused of?’ 

“I shall never forget the emphasis of his response with 
its Scottish accent: ‘You will know soon.’ 

“My question was repeated at least twice, and the reply 
three times in the most expressive manner. I woke up, 
with a certain anxiety regarding this singular dream. I 
asked whether it had any meaning, when my wife came 
rushing into the room in great agitation, an open letter in 
her hand. She cried: ‘Oh, James, a dreadful thing has 
happened at the workmen’s ball. Robert Mackenzie com¬ 
mitted suicide.’ I then understood the meaning of my 
dream and said quietly with an air of certainty: ‘No, he 
has not killed himself.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘He has 
just told me.’ 

“When he appeared—to avoid interrupting the narra¬ 
tive I did not mention this detail—I had been struck by 
his queer appearance. His face was a livid blue, and on 
his forehead were spots resembling drops of perspira¬ 
tion. 

“This is what had happened. Coming home on the Sat¬ 
urday night, Mackenzie had taken a bottle containing 
nitric acid thinking it was a bottle of whiskey. He had 
poured out a small glassful and emptied it at a gulp. He 
had died on the Sunday in terrible agony. He was believed 
to have committed suicide, and that is why he had come 
to tell me that he was innocent of the accusation brought 
against him. Now the remarkable thing, of which I had 
no idea, is that when I looked up the symptoms accompany¬ 
ing poisoning by nitric acid, I found they were just about 
those I had noticed on Robert’s face. 

“It was soon found that the death had been attributed 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 25 

to suicide in error. I heard this next day through my rep¬ 
resentative in Scotland. 

1 ‘ This apparition, in my view, was due to the profound 
gratitude of Mackenzie, whom I had taken out of a de¬ 
plorable state of misery, and his ardent desire to retain 
my esteem.” 

That is the story told by the Glasgow manufac¬ 
turer. Does not the fact of this workman coming, 
after his alleged suicide, to reveal the truth to him 
prove survival? 

We have hundreds of similar observations, made 
by responsible people who simply relate what hap¬ 
pened to them. The only way to evade all explana¬ 
tion is to say that the stories are not true, that they 
are imagined or invented, that the alleged witnesses 
are not telling the truth. Now the Glasgow manu¬ 
facturer was a personal friend of Gurney, one of 
the founders of the English Society for Psychical 
Research, known to him as a sincere and upright 
man, and his veracity is beyond doubt. Well, if we 
do not accuse all the observers of imposture if we do 
not think that they were feeble-sighted and that 
everybody is more or less mad or subject to halluci¬ 
nation, we must admit these facts just as we are 
bound to admit a strange and unexplained flash of 
lightning. One cannot deny everything. We must 
frankly acknowledge that we have here a whole 
region of things unknown to scientific investigation. 
In the particular case which I have just related, the 
young man, poisoned by mistake in the night from 
Saturday to Sunday, at Glasgow, appeared the fol¬ 
lowing Tuesday in London to his employer, who did 
not know of his death, to declare that he had not 
committed suicide. He was, therefore, forty-eight 
hours dead. We cannot here admit the coincidence 
of any dream with such a detailed occurrence, nor 
chance, nor anything else. 


26 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Those who deny these facts are ignorant, or il¬ 
logical, or insincere, for if they know them I can¬ 
not imagine how they eliminate the action of the 
deceased person. 

Camille Flammarion. 

That was the article published in the Journal . I 
admit that, against my usual custom, I had employed 
a rather aggressive style, in order to provoke dis¬ 
cussion and see what happened. The effect came 
soon. The next day, our comrade, M. Clement 
Vautel, who is particularly sceptical in these mat¬ 
ters, replied by the following radical denial: 

My Film 

In the year 1861, on a fine summer evening, Mr. Harry 
Cower was sitting in his dining room at Sydney, Australia. 
He had no appetite and could not dispel the melancholy 
ideas which crowded upon him. 

Suddenly he heard a crisp and very faint noise. The 
mirror over the mantelpiece had split. “That is queer!” 
said Mr. Harry Cower. Some weeks afterwards he heard 
that at the moment when the mirror broke, his old aunt, 
Mrs. Dorothy Elizabeth MacClure, had suddenly died at 
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U. S. A. 

Does this authentic fact not prove in an undeniable 
fashion the reality of manifestations from Beyond? 

Another time it is a certain Archibald B. Blackburn of 
Chicago, who in 1874, at Woodston, Ohio, saw appear be¬ 
fore him his friend John William Hercules O’Sullivan, 
of New Tipperary (Mass.). O’Sullivan’s face was con¬ 
vulsed. He seemed to breathe with difficulty and made 
queer gestures. “What is the matter?” asks Mr. Black¬ 
burn. “Help, I am drowning,” says O’Sullivan, and 
disappears. 

Blackburn, much distressed, goes home. And, eight 
days afterwards, he hears that his friend is drowned in 
the Missouri, at the time and on the day when his phantom 
called for help. 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 27 

Those who deny these eloquent facts, says M. Flamma- 
rion, are either ignorant, or illogical, or insincere. 

Well, then, I deny them. 

I deny them all, en bloc, in the most categorical fashion. 

I have read in the psychic books of M. Flammarion and 
other mystery mongers innumerable cases which strangely 
resemble the story of Harry Cower and Archibald B. 
Blackburn. I consider them devoid of any kind of docu¬ 
mentary value. They all occurred at a fabulous epoch, and 
guarantees are absolutely lacking. When I think that we 
cannot be trusted to describe exactly a street accident which 
we saw, I say to myself that it is foolish to base a whole 
philosophy, a sort of religion, on ancient anecdotes told 
in their own way by people we know nothing about. 

Besides, there is too much English spoken in these stories 
of another world. The spirits, spectres, phantoms, etc., 
are never natives of Pontarlier or Romorantin; it is always 
in England or America that they indulge in their little 
manifestations. Is the Beyond also an Anglo-Saxon 
colony ? 

Why, for instance, did not the late Bessarabo appear 
to the President of the Assize Court, to the Jury, or even 
to Maitre de Moro-Giafferi, to tell in what circumstances 
he took up his quarters at the bottom of a trunk? 

That would more surely overcome our scepticism than 
the collection of psycho-canards collected by the gentle and 
pensive Camille Flammarion. 

Clement Vaijtel. 

It is by these pleasantries, this playing with 
words, etc., that our confrere of the Grand Press 
thinks he can explain the posthumous apparition 
of Robert Mackenzie! I venture to remark that 
this “solution’’ bears no relation to the problem. 
It is equivalent to these simple words: “There 
is nothing in it.” “Nothing”—that is, very little, 
considering all the facts established beyond a 
doubt. 

As M. Clement Yautel declares that they “all 


28 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


occurred at a fabulous epoch, and guarantees are 
absolutely lacking , 9 9 1 brought him up against a fact 
observed in France, and not at the Antipodes, and 
neither an ancient anecdote nor belonging to a fab¬ 
ulous epoch. Here is the fact. It is an observation 
by Mr. Frederick Wingfield, made at Belle-Isle-en- 
Terre (Cotes-du-Nord): 

On the night of March 25, 1880, he writes, I dreamed 
that I saw my brother Richard sitting on a chair in front 
of me. I spoke to him. He simply nodded in reply, then 
rose and left the room. I awoke, and found that I was 
standing with one foot on the floor by my bed and the 
other on the bed, and I was trying to pronounce the name 
of my brother. The impression that he was there was 
so strong, and the whole scene so vivid, that I left the 
bedroom to look for my brother in the drawing-room, but 
found nobody. 

I then had the idea of an impending calamity, and I 
noted the “apparition’* in my diary, with the remark: 
“God forbid it!” Three days afterwards I received the 
news that my brother had died that day, at 8.30, of the 
consequences of a fall while hunting. 

The death had therefore occurred several hours before 
the clear vision. 

The very Parisian and very subtle sceptic of the 
Journal kindly acknowledged the receipt of this 
communication in a quite amiable letter, from which 
I quote only the following lines: 

This took place in the Cotes-du-Nord. True, but your 
personages are Anglo-Saxons. Richard Wingfield, Baker, 
is not very Breton. Now this story, like all the others, I 
deny. Illusion. Vanity. Humbug. 

This very characteristic observation is of no 
value, because the narrator is not French! If he 
were French, it would be just the same. It is 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


29 


* i humbug/ ’ and there is nothing but humbug in all 
these stories: Death, mourning, pain, despair, all 
this does not count, and we can only laugh. This 
explanation of unexplainable things is extremely 
simple! Let us add that all this is just as usual. 
All the sciences had that sort of treatment when 
they began. 

Besides, the objection itself is valueless, inasmuch 
as an observation made in London or Rome is as 
respectable as one made in Paris. These facts are 
observed in the whole world, and France has no 
monopoly of them. 

Some days afterwards, June 18, the following 
letter was sent to me from Bologne, as a really 
French observation: 

I read your article of June 16 (Manifestations of the 
Dead). I also read the “film” of our amusing Clement 
Yautel (17th), who denies the facts you mention on the 
excuse that they always take place in distant countries. 
Very well, I shall quote one which happened in Paris, in 
1911, and you may communicate it to our Clement Vautel. 

My father died of the consequences of an operation at 
the Cochin hospital in February, 1906. My mother not 
possessing at the time the money necessary to bury him, 
the hospital undertook the expense, and my father was 
buried in the fosse commune of the Bagneux cemetery. 

Five years later I was at home and living in the Rue 
Etex. One morning I was walking up and down in my 
room. I turned towards the kitchen to have my early 
breakfast (it was 7 a.m.). I suddenly saw my father, 
standing upright in the kitchen, his right hand resting 
on the rim of the sink. It was he, indeed, with his calm 
manner which he always had during his life. 

Some months passed and I told nobody about the oc¬ 
currence. But one evening I found myself on a visit at 
my sister’s and told her. She said: “Look here. That 
was just the day on which father was exhumed!” 

Not knowing this, I asked why I had not been told. 


30 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


“Because we thought you would not come at such an early 
hour. ” “ What hour V* “ Seven in the morning. ’ 1 

And it was just at seven that I had seen my father. 

Why did he appear to me? Was it to reproach me for 
not being there when his grave was changed? Yet I was 
not guilty, because I had not been told. 

At that time I believed nothing, for I had not been 
brought up in any religion, but I assure you that since the 
day when I saw my father I have believed in God and the 
immortality of my soul. 

Please accept my declaration of the most scrupulous 
sincerity. 

Mlle. H. H. (my name for you only). 

We may still assume a hallucination without 
cause. But how account for the coincidence of the 
vision with the exhumation of the narrator’s father? 
That is where the problem arises. Can it be vanity, 
humbug? What do you think? Is it not better to 
confess that we know nothing, but that there is 
“something in it,” and that we ought to admit the 
facts? 

(M. Yautel has a good sense of humour. So 
had Voltaire. The great spirits of science—Co¬ 
pernicus, Galileo, Newton, Columbus, Gutenberg, 
Denis Papin, Fulton, Volta, Ampere—were less hu¬ 
morous, but progress owes its existence to them.) 

Here is an observation in which the hypothesis 
of hallucination is not even admissible, for there 
are two independent witnesses. It was sent to me 
from Strassburg, on June 17 of the same year, 
1922: 

My brother, Hubert Blanc, was Almoner of the Marist 
Brethren at Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux (Drome). There 
was in the monastery a Brother who had been bedridden 
for a long time and was then in extremis . My brother went 
regularly to pass some minutes at his bedside. One day, 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


31 


in the course of conversation, the sick man said: “You 
know, Mr. Almoner, I shall not depart hence without taking 
leave of you.” “I should hope not,” said my brother in a 
tone of pleasantry. 

Two or three days afterwards, my mother and my 
brother, having retired about 10 p.m., were hardly in bed 
when they heard at the same time, though their rooms 
were at a distance from each other, a well-marked noise 
of a key in the front door of the house, and then the steps 
of someone walking in the hall. Greatly disturbed, my 
mother called her son as loudly as she could, saying: 
“Hubert, somebody is in the house.” 

My brother, who had heard the same noises, arose at 
once, went through the rooms, found the hall door shut 
and nothing out of the ordinary. But hardly had that 
visitation taken place when the telephone bell sounded. 
“Hullo, hullo, Mr. Almoner, come quickly, so-and-so is 
dying.” My brother hurried up and found in fact that 
the patient was breathing his last sigh. 

This event, related by witnesses whose good faith cannot 
be doubted, produced a sensation in the monastery. The 
story was told me often by my mother and my brother. 
I authorise you to publish it if you think fit. My brother 
died at Grignan (Drome) where he was parish priest. 

Marius Blanc 

(Technical Director of the Biscuit Works, 
“La Cigogne,” Strassburg). 

These manifestations and noises, the cries, the 
key in the lock, the steps in the hall, etc., are unex¬ 
plained, and yet they were undoubtedly and incon¬ 
testably observed. There are thousands like them. 
They cannot have been invented. (Those I have 
received number more than 5,600, and there are 
more in other countries.) It is nonsense to ascribe 
them all to practical jokers. 

Out of the numerous letters received in connection 
with the article in question, I shall select the follow¬ 
ing, which I give verbatim: 


32 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Dampierre, Seine-et-Oise. 

June 16, 1922. 

Monsieur et illustre MaItre, 

I pray you will excuse my indiscretion and impor¬ 
tunity. Having this day read your article in Le Journal, 
I have remembered the following fact which I can certify 
as being true. I take the liberty of reporting it to you. 

My grandfather, now deceased, who used to be a district 
surveyor, had retired. He descended one morning from his 
room and said: ‘ ‘ Last night I dreamed a strange dream: 
M. J. P., our cousin, appeared to me and told me he had 
just died and asked me to accompany him to the notary, 
where he would communicate his will to me.” 

As my grandfather was saying this, the postman brought 
a telegram announcing the death of this cousin, whose 
illness had been unknown to us. We were very much struck 
by the coincidence. The subsequent reading of the will of 
M. J. P. astonished his family. He did not leave any of 
his goods to those he had loved. The heir was even accused 
of a forgery. Had M. J. P., when he appeared in the 
dream, wanted to call attention to the strangeness of his 
will? If you will read these lines you will, illustrious 
master, be able to draw a conclusion. 

Je vous prie, etc. 

Paul Brustier 

(Of Dampierre, Tax-collector). 

To these unexplained (and inexplicable) observa¬ 
tions we could add a large number of similar ones. 
One may try to understand them by telepathic or 
unconscious transmission. But to deny them is ab¬ 
surd. 

What is the explanation? 

Before assuming the action of an intelligence out¬ 
side ourselves, all normal hypotheses must be ex¬ 
hausted, not only that of an unconscious activity 
of the spirit, but also that of a memory from which 
nothing escapes. This vigorous procedure is nec¬ 
essary. 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


33 


But let us go back to the case, above cited, of 
Robert Mackenzie and its interpretation. Let us 
analyse and dissect it. This demonstration is of 
such importance that all possible objections must 
be examined and rigorously weighed. The dream 
apparition of Robert Mackenzie, coming to defend 
himself against an imagined attack, raises several 
of these. 

I shall mention at once that the account is ex¬ 
tracted from my book After Death, slightly abridged 
for Le Journal, and that among the possible ob¬ 
jections I pointed out in the book, that of “retarded 
suggestion. ’ ’ Since the public is, generally speak¬ 
ing, unacquainted with these studies, I did not men¬ 
tion it in the article. Let us here examine the 
hypothesis of a thought transference made by the 
dying person before his death to his employer, which 
remained latent in the brain of the recipient, and 
only manifested itself after the calm of a night of 
sleep. A reader sends me his comments which 
specify this objection very clearly, and also deal 
with the transmission of thought by the reading 
of the letter received by the engineer’s wife. 


It is possible [writes my honourable correspondent] 
that Mackenzie, in the course of his long agony, perceived 
the guesses of those about him without being able to answer 
them. The honest and timid youth was haunted in his 
delirium by the fixed idea to undeceive his benefactor, 
and to cry out the truth to him. And since his thought, 
being gagged, could not express itself in words, his instinct 
would no doubt seek, and possibly find, such means of 
communication as are admitted in the phenomena of 
telepathy, and which you do not deny. Would a message 
launched into space get through at once to the person 
intended, if he were not warned? In the first place, the 
factory owner, much absorbed in business—even in his 
dream, as the story shows—shows himself recalcitrant to 


34 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


the interview. Perhaps he had already several times dis¬ 
missed this importunate buzzing. But the night, appeas¬ 
ing one by one the other dissonant voices, may have made 
his unconscious self more amenable to the imperceptible 
appeal. Harassed by the insistence of the phantom, he 
would at last give it audience. You know the rest. 

But on what grounds can you maintain that it repre¬ 
sents a being returning from the Beyond rather than one 
who was still living at the time of emission? Examples 
of retarded communications are quoted and accepted by 
you in analogous cases (see especially Avant la Morte, pp. 
137 and 162). Why exclude them in the present case? 

Besides, another hypothesis presents itself, inspired by 
your narrative itself: We know that a letter was already 
on its way, though unknown to the engineer. It brought 
him details of this tragic end. Its context was therefore 
of a nature to furnish his dream with the first elements 
of the scene, and the imagination—more imaginative than 
ever in the dream state—could easily bring out the dra¬ 
matic element in the apparition. The remark, “You will 
know it soon,” repeated three times by the phantom, does 
it not seem to you to be a clear and direct allusion to the 
imminent arrival of the letter which suggested it at a 
distance? And thus we come back to the rather less dis¬ 
cussed phenomena of second sight, telepathy, etc. And 
these, to those who accept them, do not conclusively prove 
survival, which, after all, is the sole object of the con¬ 
troversy. 

Your interpretation, dear master, is not excluded by 
mine. Both can subsist parallel to each other. But the 
fact that yours allows room for concurrent hypotheses 
makes it indecisive in itself. 

Georges Izambard. 

Neuilly, Seine. 

The above letter must be taken seriously (unlike 
the article of Clement Vautel). It puts forward 
two hypotheses towards an explanation. Let us ex¬ 
amine the first of these. I can deal with it the bet¬ 
ter for having studied it for a long time. 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


35 


Since the commencement of my enquiry in 1899 

1 have received more than 5,600 different psychic 
observations, and I had received 500 before I de¬ 
cided upon the enquiry. Of the quantity of psychic 
facts reported by societies devoted to such studies 
in France, England, Italy, Germany, or other coun¬ 
tries I estimate that an equal number has come to 
my knowledge. This gives ten or eleven thousand 
at least. Among these there was none which 
equalled in all its aspects the case of Mackenzie. 
The narrative which approaches it most closely, 
and concerns a retarded cerebral impression, is 
that which can be read in vol. n. of Death and its 
Mystery, and which is specified above (p. 6): the 
sister of Louis Noell, a beautiful girl of eighteen, 
suddenly attacked by diphtheria during a walk at 
Perpignan, dying after a cruel agony and appear¬ 
ing after her death to her brother, a student at 
Montpellier. I have enumerated this fact, which 
is absolutely authentic and undeniable, among tele¬ 
pathic communications between the living, and not 
the dead, while leaving the door open for the lat¬ 
ter hypothesis, for we must look for an explana¬ 
tion first in the mentality of the living. Frederick 
Myers, the discoverer of the “retarded latent im¬ 
pression,” who studied it with so much care, ad¬ 
mits that the retardation can only extend over a 
few hours, twelve at the most (Human Personality , 
vol. ii, p. 13), and that it is explained by the daily 
occupation of the brain which does not allow the 
impression to manifest itself until the spirit is suf¬ 
ficiently rested. On the day of the catastrophe, the 
student had been at a pleasure party. His sister 
was attacked on the afternoon of November 22 and 
died the next morning. The student did not get 
home until the evening of the 23rd, or rather at 

2 a.m. next morning, went to bed quite elated, and 


36 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


at 4 a.m. saw in his dream his sister, pale and 
despairing, and calling him plaintively again and 
again. The hypothesis of retarded reception logi¬ 
cally presents itself. The young man was not in a 
condition to receive his sister’s appeal sooner. We 
therefore conceive this retardation of twenty-three 
hours after death, if we suppose that his sister de¬ 
sired his presence near her until she expired, feel¬ 
ing herself entirely lost. 

Given the special situation of the percipient, it 
seems to me that we have a right to prolong the re¬ 
tardation of the impression felt, though it is usu¬ 
ally limited to a few hours. Can we use this ex¬ 
perience to explain the Mackenzie case? We can¬ 
not, since this sort of explanation no longer tits the 
reality. 

I repeat that, among the thousands of cases, that 
of Louis Noell is the only one which to my knowl¬ 
edge can he compared with that of Mackenzie. Yet, 
what a difference! Let us examine it and analyse 
it. 

Louis Noell feels the impression as soon as he 
is capable of it, the first night after the appeal, two 
hours after the moment when sleep commenced to 
liberate his brain. 

The dream of Mackenzie’s employer only took 
place the second night, forty-eight hours after the 
death. To apply the retardation hypothesis to this 
dream, it would be necessary to assume that the 
employer had not slept the night before—a pure 
assumption. There is no question of it in the ac¬ 
count published by Myers himself (Human Person¬ 
ality, vol. ii, p. 52, “Phantasms of the Dead”), and 
there is no suspicion of a latent impression, though 
he himself originated that hypothesis. We should 
also have to suppose that the brain was unfit to 
perceive until after a second whole night of sleep, 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


37 


at the hour of waking. It therefore seems to me 
we must eliminate that explanation and that for 
retardation the Noell case is unique. There is a 
limit to the possible interval between emission and 
reception. The action of the deceased himself re¬ 
mains the most probable and admissible hypothe¬ 
sis. 

As regards an explanation by thought transfer¬ 
ence on the arrival of the letter addressed to the 
engineer’s wife, it is even less admissible, since 
that letter announced the suicide and not the error 
of interpretation. We should have to suppose that 
the reader of that letter had not believed it, but 
had imagined an error—another pure assumption. 
A telepathic reading of the letter by the sleeping 
engineer and combinations in his spirit? More 
hypotheses! There is no question of this in the 
direct original narrative. Note that Frederick 
Myers, the author, with Gurney and Podmore, of 
the celebrated work Phantasms of the Living, did 
not arrive at Phantasms of the Bead till after ten 
more years of contradictory discussions. And I 
am in the same case, as I did not accept manifesta¬ 
tions of the dead until I found it impossible to 
explain the facts by acts of the living. The other 
hypotheses will not stand a rigorous and complete 
analysis. 

Among the numerous letters written in search 
of a possible explanation based upon acts of the 
living or dying person—among others by Messrs. 
Grandmougin, Geoffriault, Clement de Saint-Marcq, 
Kontz, de Schildknecht, and Flobert—the majority 
invoke a thought transference due to the letter re¬ 
ceived by the engineer’s wife. As we have seen, 
these two hypotheses do not apply. I have recalled 
them here to show once again that we look for the 
fullest light. It is a good example of a discussion 


38 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


in the French Press and is worthy of being referred 
to here, in spite of its great extent. 

I may add that the cadaverous aspect of the i ‘ sui¬ 
cide’ ’—livid flesh and spots symptomatic of fatal 
poisoning—supports better than all the other argu¬ 
ments the reality of this posthumous manifestation. 

We may differ as to explanations and theories 
to account for the facts; but to deny the facts would 
be an inexcusable error. 

Our first tendency is to attribute these various 
manifestations of the dead to telepathy among the 
living. But in some cases this interpretation breaks 
down. The authors of Phantasms of the Living 
quote in this connection (vol. i, p. 365) the case of 
Mrs. Menneer, who twice in the same night dreamt 
of seeing her brother headless, standing at the foot 
of his bed, with his head placed on a coffin beside 
him! She did not know where that brother was. 
His name was Mr. Wellington, and he was travelling 
abroad. In reality he was then at Sarawak with 
Sir James Brooke, and he was killed there dur¬ 
ing a Chinese insurrection. He had been taken for 
the son of the Rajah. His head was cut off and 
carried in triumph, and his body was burnt with 
the house of the Rajah. The date of the dream 
coincided approximately with the date of the mur¬ 
der. It is almost certain that his head was cut 
off after his death, for those Chinese were not sol¬ 
diers but coolies in a gold mine who, having armed 
themselves with anything they could lay their hands 
on, could certainly not kill a European on the de¬ 
fensive by cutting off his head. We must there¬ 
fore conclude that the impression made on the sister 
took place after his head was cut off . 

The same volume of the Phantasms quotes an¬ 
other case, quite as conclusive, against the hypoth- 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 39 

esis of a telepathic communication before death. 
Here it is: 

Mrs. Storie, of Edinburgh, when living at Hobart town, 
in Tasmania, one night had a strange, confused dream, 
resembling a series of distinct visions. She saw her twin 
brother sitting in the open on high ground and illuminated 
by oblique moonlight. He raised his arm, calling out: 
“The train! the train!” Something struck him, he fell 
down senseless, and a large black object passed by whist¬ 
ling. Then she saw a compartment in a train, in which 
she recognised Pastor Johnstone. After that she again 
saw her brother passing his right hand across his fore¬ 
head, as if he were in suffering, and finally she heard an 
unknown voice announcing that her brother had just 
died. 

That same night her brother had been killed by a train 
passing near the place where he had sat down to rest. 

The details of this dream agreed with reality. 
The Rev. Mr. Johnstone was in the train which 
killed her brother. This fact was not known to the 
victim of the accident while he lived. The vision 
must, therefore, have been produced by the de¬ 
ceased who, at the moment when the train passed, 
acted upon his sister and let her see the fatal acci¬ 
dent. It is not before his death that he acted thus, 
but at the moment of death, and after the fatal 
blow. 

Logically and normally we must seek to attribute 
the phenomena to faculties of the living being as 
yet unknown to science, and I for one am the more 
inclined to do so, since Astronomy tells of stars 
which may no longer exist, but from which we re¬ 
ceive to-day rays which have been emitted by them 
thousands of years ago. They are dead, yet they 
speak. But we must not be content with insufficient 
reasons. 

It is quite natural—and, indeed, it is our duty— 


40 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


to doubt the manifestations of the dead so long 
as there is no proof. We have a tendency to cast 
suspicion on all stories of manifestations of the 
dead, and in this attitude we are justified by their 
apparent improbability and the rarity of positive 
proof. In the first place, the sincerity of the nar¬ 
rators may be doubted. There are liars and jokers. 
In the second place, even when there is perfect sin¬ 
cerity, memory is not always faithful, and arrange¬ 
ments and exaggerations are possible. Besides, the 
problem is so grave in itself that we cannot and 
must not admit any observations but those which 
are indisputable. Furthermore, we must know how 
to interpret these observations, to show that they 
cannot be accounted for by known human faculties, 
and not to admit the action of deceased persons 
unless no other hypothesis is possible. All these 
elements of study can only be combined in the ob¬ 
server if he is himself well acquainted with this 
class of facts and, so to speak, knows what he is 
talking about. 

In this connection I may point out that generally 
the strangest confusions creep into metapsychic 
studies among the public. To take a recent ex¬ 
ample, it appears that certain experiments under¬ 
taken in 1922 by three professors of the Sorbonne 
on the production of ectoplasm having led to a nega¬ 
tive result, or, rather, an incomplete result, the con¬ 
clusion has been drawn that there are no manifesta¬ 
tions of the dead. What singular reasoning! What 
have any organic products issuing from the mouth 
or the nose of Miss A. or Miss B. to do with the 
immortality of the soul? Yet thousands of readers 
of the daily papers have agreed with such conclu¬ 
sions, which are as stupid as they are ridiculous. 

Yes, we must know what we are talking about. 
If anybody came to me and said: “I have just been 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


41 


present at a railway accident. I saw the dead and 
wounded, and I assure you that the moon does not 
revolve round the earth,’’ I should ask myself by 
what false reasoning that person may have pro¬ 
ceeded from the train to the moon. But aberrations 
of this kind are of daily occurrence. 

The observations which have been communicated 
to me by unknown persons do not differ from those 
sent in by persons whom I have known for a long 
time, and in whom I have as much confidence as I 
have in myself. If these are true there is no rea¬ 
son why the others should not be equally true. The 
class of practical jokers is small when it comes to 
the loss of a relative, a father, a mother, a wife, or 
a child. Those are sorrows which, as a rule, are 
not treated with loud laughter. These subjects are 
not played with. And sincerity has its own accent. 
“The style is the man,” as Buff on said. 

With these correspondents I am in the same case 
as I am with those who constantly send me from 
every part of the globe their various observations 
on astronomy and meteorology. 

When a person writes that he has observed an 
eclipse, an occultation, a meteorite, a shooting star, 
a comet, a change on Jupiter or Mars, an aurora 
borealis, an earthquake, a storm, a peculiar light¬ 
ning flash, a lunar rainbow, etc., I consider the 
communication to be made sincerely and in good 
faith, which does not hinder my examining and 
judging it. It may be objected that the situation 
is not identically the same, for an astronomical or 
meteorological observation may be made at the same 
time by other persons, and that gives a sort of con¬ 
trol. No doubt. But, as regards my opinion of the 
observer’s sincerity, the case is precisely the same: 
I give it the benefit of the doubt and reserve all 
rights of free examination. 


42 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


In the case of telepathy and such cases the same 
human beings are in question. They have the same 
intellectual faculties. They are in a normal mental 
state and prove it by their own reflections. A priori, 
I have no more reason to distrust a savant, a pro¬ 
fessor, a magistrate, a priest, a clergyman, a manu¬ 
facturer, or a farmer when he tells me of a psychic 
fact than when he speaks of a physical observation. 
Yet, because these phenomena are rarer and less 
credible, I set about investigating a large number, 
gathering information, and making enquiries which 
have almost always resulted in the direct confirma¬ 
tion of the narratives received. 

That was also the practice of the Psychical Re¬ 
search Society of London. And in spite of certain 
variations in the narratives, certain obscurings of 
the memory, it is always found that the original fact 
is real and not invented. 

But, if impostors are rare, illusions are plentiful. 
Their name is legion in this class of facts. The 
extent of human credulity is incredible! The style 
is also very characteristic. Yet, false money does 
not disprove the existence of the real article. 

What is perhaps most difficult is for a man to be 
entirely independent, to say what he thinks and 
knows without considering what opinion is held of 
him by others. Vitam impendere vero, 4 4 to conse¬ 
crate one’s life to Truth.” It was a noble device of 
Juvenal and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but it usually 
produces nothing but enemies. For humanity is, 
above all, a coarse, barbarous, ignorant, cowardly, 
and hypocritical race. 

What is perhaps yet more curious is that the free 
search for truth is distasteful to everybody, for 
every brain has its little prejudices which it will 
not give up. 

If I say, for instance, that the survival of the 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


43 


soul, already rendered probable by philosophy, will 
soon be experimentally proved by psychic science, 
more than one sceptic will smile at my contention. 

If, on the other hand, I say that the spiritualist 
who calls up Socrates or Newton, Archimedes or 
Saint Augustine, to his little table, and imagines 
he is conversing with them, is the victim of an il¬ 
lusion, there is quite a crowd which will collect 
stones to stone me. 

Well, even though the trail of projectiles flung at 
me continue, I shall declare as follows: The human 
being is not yet known to naturalists, nor to physi¬ 
ologists, nor to philosophers . 

A person who dies at Marseilles can appear at 
the same moment at Paris, at Algiers, in America, 
or in China, and can do so without changing place. 

A young girl waltzing with a beloved fiance can 
suddenly see her dead mother enter the drawing¬ 
room and call out that she is dying a thousand miles 
away. 

A man passing along a street under the windows 
of his mistress can appear to the latter in her room 
without leaving the street. 

Thought can act upon the thought of another per¬ 
son without the help of the senses. 

One may see in a dream a country he has never 
seen before, and see himself in that country as he 
will be ten years later. 

The Future is perceptible, like the Past. The 
Present alone does not exist, since scientific analysis 
reduces it to less than a hundredth of a second. 

Space and time, as presented to us by our meas¬ 
uring instruments, do not exist. Instead, there is 
infinity and there is eternity. The distance between 
here and Sirius is not a greater part of the infinite 
than the distance between your right hand and your 
left. Electricity has already accustomed us to 


44 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


rapid transmissions over great distances. Light 
and electricity do not take as much as two seconds 
to traverse the distance between the earth and the 
moon. 

Matter, also, is not what it appears to us to be. 

On the whole, the science of all the academies of 
the globe represents an immense ignorance. 

We know nothing exact, precise, or absolute about 
anything, and we are surrounded by forces as yet 
unknown; let nobody, therefore, have the presump¬ 
tion to say, “This is impossible,’’ or “That is pos¬ 
sible.” We have only one right—that of being 
modest, especially as to what concerns life and 
death. We live in the middle of the unknown. But 
it is beautiful, it is good, it is useful to seek. 

Laplace reasoned exactly when he wrote in his 
Analytical Theory of Probability: “We are so far 
from knowing all the agencies of nature, and their 
various modes of action, that it would be unbecom¬ 
ing in a philosopher to deny the phenomena simply 
because they are inexplicable in the present state 
of our knowledge. Only we must examine them 
with an attention which is the more scrupulous the 
more difficult it appears to be to admit them. And 
the calculus of probabilities becomes indispensable 
for determining how far the observations must be 
multiplied in order to obtain in favour of the agents 
indicated by them a probability superior to the rea¬ 
sons one may have for rejecting them.” 

This argument of the immortal French astron¬ 
omer confirms the ruling spirit of our present work 
on metapsychical problems. Let us also remember 
that he published those remarks in connection with 
animal magnetism and the divining-rod. I ask my 
readers to weigh that last phrase in applying it to 
the number of observations already specified. With 
Laplace we are in good company. Let us continue. 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


45 


Certain objections end by becoming annoying. 
Among these is the observation that, in order that 
an observation be of scientific value, we must be 
able to renew it at will. It amounts to saying that 
a lightning flash has not existed because one cannot 
have it over again; that the fall of a meteorite is 
inadmissible because we cannot reproduce it at will; 
that an eclipse is a fable because it is necessary to 
await certain luni-solar conditions for its recur¬ 
rence ; that an earthquake has not occurred because 
we cannot repeat it. It is confusing two orders of 
things which are entirely distinct: observation and 
experiment. We observe a spontaneous phenome¬ 
non; experimentally we manufacture a chemical 
compound. Now it is not rare to find this sort of 
fallacy even among men used to scientific methods. 
Astronomy and meteorology are observational sci¬ 
ences. Mechanics is an experimental science. 

Must the manifestations of the dead be admitted 
to the class of facts scientifically demonstrated by 
means of sufficient observations? That is the ques¬ 
tion, and it is useless to complicate it by bringing 
in side issues. 

The amount of armour which was buckled on 
against manifestations of the dead on the occasion 
of the publication of my third volume of my work 
induces me to insist upon the certain reality of 
those manifestations. The witnesses are innumer¬ 
able. To refuse to admit them means accusing the 
narrators of malobservation, of illusion, or even 
of falsehood. These accusations are sometime ap¬ 
plicable, but not generally. Let us examine, coolly 
and carefully, some of these accounts of manifesta¬ 
tions of the dead. We may begin with one of the 
oldest. 

This ancient testimony, already known to my 
readers because they saw it in Uranie, is from a 


46 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


writer greatly esteemed for the strictness of his 
judgment and the care he bestowed upon all his 
writings. It is the history of the two travellers of 
Megara, related by Cicero. 1 Here it is: 

Two friends arrived in Megara and went to lodge sep¬ 
arately. Hardly had one of them gone to sleep when he 
saw before him his travelling companion, who told him, 
with an air of dejection, that his host had decided to 
murder him, and asked him to come to his aid as quickly 
as possible. He awoke, but concluding that he had been 
misled by a dream, he soon went to sleep again. His friend 
appeared again and implored him to hasten, as the mur¬ 
derers were entering the room. Feeling more concerned 
this time, he marvelled at the persistence of the dream 
and prepared to go to his friend. But reason and fatigue 
triumphed, and he lay down again. Then his friend 
showed himself for the third time, pale, bleeding, and 
disfigured. “ Unhappy one,” he said, “you did not come 
when I implored you to do so. The deed is done. Now 
you must avenge me. At sunrise you wfill meet at the 
gate of the town a cart filled with dung. Stop it and 
order them to empty it. You will find my body hidden 
in the middle of it. See that the honours of sepulture 
are paid to me and pursue my murderers . 9 ’ Such tenacity 
and such consistent details left no room for hesitation. 
The friend arose, ran to the gate indicated, found the 
cart, arrested the driver, who showed confusion, and after 
the first search the body of his friend was discovered. 

That is the narrative of the famous Latin author. 
What must we think of it? We may object that 
perhaps the story did not happen as told by Cicero; 
that it has been amplified and exaggerated; that 
two friends arriving in a strange town might well 
fear a mishap; that fear for the safety of a friend, 
after the fatigues of a journey, in the middle of the 
night, might induce one to dream that he is the 


1 De Divinatione, i., 27. 




EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


47 


victim of a murder. As regards the episode of the 
cart, the travellers might have seen one in the yard 
of their host, and association of ideas might bring 
it into the dream. All these explanatory hypotheses 
might he made. But they would only he hypotheses. 

Are they satisfactory 1 ? I, for one, am not satis¬ 
fied at all, and it seems to me that Cicero would 
not have told this story as an example of divina¬ 
tion in dreams, had he not had good reason to be¬ 
lieve it. Without astonishment, he adds: “What 
could he called diviner than this dream?” 

It is difficult to suppress this passage of Cicero 
with a stroke of the pen. Those most opposed to 
survival do not dare to do so, and even refer to 
the narrative as a special curiosity, Briere de Bois- 
mont as a “hallucination,” Charles Richet as a 
“metapsychic phenomenon,” etc. But what do 
these words teach us? Do they not simply hide 
the truth we want to discover? If we admit the 
narrative as it stands, we must assume that the 
murdered friend really announced his death as well 
as the circumstances leading up to it. 

I shall be told: “This is not certain.” Agreed. 
It is not as certain as if you received a blow with 
a fist on the nose or a revolver bullet in your heart, 
and that is why I wrote that there are gradations 
between probability and certainty. But the strict 
duty of every sincere man is to exercise his judg¬ 
ment freely. Of the reader I only ask attention and 
sincerity. We can suppose that Cicero invented this 
story. 

Well. Observations of this kind are numerous. 
To attribute them to hallucination or to chance co¬ 
incidence is not a satisfactory explanation. It ex¬ 
plains nothing. 

A mass of ignorant people, of every age and every 
calling, people of private fortune, commercial 


48 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


people, sceptics by temperament or by inclination, 
simply declare that they do not believe these stories 
and that there is no truth in them. That is not a 
serious solution either. Minds accustomed to care¬ 
ful study cannot be satisfied with such light-hearted 
denials. 

A fact is a fact. We cannot help admitting it, 
even when it is impossible to explain in the present 
state of our knowledge. 

It is true that medical records show that there are 
hallucinations of more than one kind and that cer¬ 
tain nervous organisations are misled by them. 
But between that fact and the conclusions that all 
unexplained psycho-biological conclusions are hallu¬ 
cinations there is an abyss. 

The scientific spirit of our age rightly seeks to 
free all these facts from the deceptive mists of su¬ 
pernaturalism, since nothing is supernatural, and 
since nature, whose kingdom is infinite, includes 
everything. 

We see at the present time journalists, either in 
ignorance or in bad faith, declare that all these re¬ 
citals of apparitions and manifestations of the dead 
are made by people of no intellectual value. Can 
we thus describe Cicero? Or Montaigne, or La 
Rochefoucauld; or Goethe, or all who have dealt with 
our subject? 

Here is another observation, also well known to 
my readers, and due to Lord Brougham, reported 
by that eminent personage himself, who was, as 
everybody knows, a member of the Institut de 
France and a Fellow of the Royal Society. 

People of my generation saw that fine old man 
in Paris or at Cannes, where he died in 1868. (He 
was born in Edinburgh in 1778.) This thinker wrote 
his autobiography and published the following ex- 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


49 


tract from it on October 16, 1862. The accuracy of 
this recollection, which dates back to 1799, has never 
been placed in any doubt; the celebrated English 
politician and historian was only 21 then and was 
travelling in Sweden. 

The weather was cold [he writes]. Arriving at Gothen¬ 
burg in a comfortable-looking inn, I asked for a hot bath, 
and then I was the subject of an adventure so curious that 
I must tell it from the beginning. 

I had a college friend at the High School, called G., 
whom I particularly liked and admired. We often con¬ 
versed on the great subject of the immortality of the soul. 
One day we were so foolish as to make an agreement, writ¬ 
ten in our own blood, which declared that whichever of 
us died first should come and manifest himself to the 
other in order to dispel any doubt we might have retained 
concerning the continuation of life after death. G. left 
for India, and I almost forgot his existence. 

As I have said, I had plunged into my bath, and was 
enjoying the delicious warmth which heated my stiffened 
limbs, when, on preparing to get out, I glanced at the 
chair on the which I had left my clothes, and what was 
my amazement at seeing, seated on that chair, my friend 
G., who was gazing at me quietly! How I got out of the 
bath I cannot say, for when I recovered my senses I found 
myself lying on the floor. The apparition, or whatever 
the phenomenon was which simulated my friend, was no 
longer there. I was so much impressed that I wanted 
to write down all the details at once, with the date, which 
was December 19. 

Lord Brougham adds that on his return to Edin¬ 
burgh he found a letter from India which announced 
the death of his friend. It took place on Decem¬ 
ber 19. 

It seems to me that Lord Brougham is no more 
a negligible quantity than Cicero, and that this ob¬ 
servation must also be taken seriously. I agree that 
it only represents a probability, but does not that 


50 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


probability approach certainty? I first thought of 
an illusion suggested by the arrangement of the 
clothes on the chair; but (1) the resemblance was 
both striking and unexpected, and (2) the coinci¬ 
dence of the death with the promise made strongly 
supports the vision. 

One of the most learned members of our Meta¬ 
psychic Institute, Professor Richet, does not accept 
survival, though it does seem to follow from these 
observations. Yet he himself, in his monumental 
Traite des Metapsychique, quotes several facts 
which, like the two last, point to the same conclu¬ 
sion. Here is one of them: 

M. Belbeder, of the 6th Colonial Regiment, had gone 
to spend his holidays with friends at Riberac (Dordogne). 
At the moment of going to sleep he saw a white trans¬ 
parent shadow which came from the fireplace, advanced 
towards the bed, and said to his inner ear: “Always be 
a friend to my son.” As the shadow rose slowly he rec¬ 
ognised the mother of one of his best friends, whom he 
had left in good health. He got up to find if it had been 
an illusion. There was no moon, and the night was very 
dark. The person whom he had recognised had, in fact, 
died two hours before. 

Well, if that mother had died two hours previ¬ 
ously, why attribute this observation to a mysteri¬ 
ous cryptaesthesia, a word which requires previous 
definition? Are we not often satisfied with wordsf 
To say that one “sees what is hidden” is no more 
an explanation than “lucidity.” 

Another example from the same author: 

Miss Beale, then fourteen years of age, saw coming into 
her room in the middle of the night the figure of a man 
in a flowing dressing-gown. He seemed to feel his way 
with his hand; then he disappeared. Miss B., much 
frightened, called one of her companions who slept in the 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


51 


same room. The latter said: “That is my brother C., 
no doubt.” Next morning at breakfast the brother said 
he had not come, but he had also seen at the same time a 
form which he had recognised as the shadow of a friend 
(who was in bad health, but not supposed to be in danger) 
who had once said to him: 1 ‘ Whichever of us dies first 
shall come and see the other.” In reality, that friend 
had died the same night, as was found afterwards. 

The deceased had come to redeem a promise. 
Why not admit it? Cryptaesthesia, or lucidity, do 
they explain the act? Has death nothing to do with 
it? That is what we want to know. 

Another example quoted in the same work, and 
which I also published (Death and Its Mystery , iii, 
p. 144): 

Miss Stella, then seventeen years of age, saw coming into 
her room a young friend of the same age, a fraternal 
comrade. The door opened [she writes], and I saw him 
enter. I rose to offer him a chair near the fire, for he 
seemed to be cold and had no overcoat, although it was 
snowing. I began to scold him for going out without 
wrapping up properly. Instead of replying, he placed 
his hand on his chest and on his head. I was still talk¬ 
ing when Dr. G. came in and asked to whom I was talk¬ 
ing. “Here,” I said, “this troublesome boy without an 
overcoat, with such a bad cold that he cannot speak. Lend 
him an overcoat and send him home.” I shall never 
forget the horror and amazement shown on the face of 
the doctor, for Bertie had died barely twenty minutes be¬ 
fore. I had heard the latch of the door turn and the 
door open. He had walked into the room and sat down 
while I lighted the candles. 

The young man had certainly died. Miss Stella 
did not know it. He had really shown himself to 
her. That is what must be explained. 

It is alleged that our proofs are insufficient, but 
no allowance is made for the fact that the proofs 


52 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


we can, and must, demand in these researches are 
not of the same order as those to which we are ac¬ 
customed in our laboratories and our physical ex¬ 
periments. The dead are not at our disposal. We 
are forced to rely on the good faith of the nar¬ 
rators, on their honesty and their conscience. If a 
good woman writes to me, with the tears from her 
eyes falling on the paper, that she has seen a vision 
of her husband who was buried the night before, 
I can imagine an illusion of sight, but not a story 
invented by her to trap me, nor that the advice 
she asks for her consolation in her distress is pure 
comedy. If a person falls ill as the result of an 
apparition, I cannot see in that circumstance a 
snare for my credulity, and so on. None of these 
objections are serious. When our information 
shows that we have to do with honest people, does 
not the simplest common sense enjoin upon us to 
accept the narratives, to control them as best we can, 
and to interpret them with attentive care, after elimi¬ 
nating cases of illusion and hallucination! I have 
too often published the precautions taken against 
practical jokers and impostors to be obliged to 
specify them again. As a rule, they are unaware 
of their own superficial and incompetent contra¬ 
dictions. 

Nothing remains seriously admissible but the il¬ 
lusive hypothesis, which is only rarely applicable 
and often inadequate from every point of view, as 
in the following case: 

On Friday, August 22, 1890, at 10 a.m., a certain Mr. 
Russell, precentor of the Church of St. Luke, San Fran¬ 
cisco, fell down in the street with a stroke of apoplexy, 
at the comer of Sutter Street and Mason Street, and 
was taken to his house, where he died at 11 a.m. He was 
to have gone the next day, Saturday, to practise a certain 
piece of music. Now on this Friday afternoon, the music 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


53 


master, Mr. Reeves, looked for the piece of music to be 
sung on the following Sunday, when, on leaving his room, 
he saw the precentor on the staircase, holding a sheet of 
music in one hand and raising the other to his forehead. 
“He seemed so real, so living,’* said Mr. Reeves, “that I 
went forward at once to shake hands and bid him wel¬ 
come. But he evaporated, like a cloud disappearing in 
air.” (For details see Death and Its Mystery , iii, p. 73.) 

The startled observer cried out: “Oh, my God I” His 
sister and niece rushed forward, and he wanted to tell 
them what he had seen, but he could not speak. He was 
ill for several days in spite of his normally sound health, 
his strong constitution, and his very sceptical tempera¬ 
ment. He did not know of the death, which had hap¬ 
pened three hours before. His cry was heard by three 
witnesses. The vision was seen in a perfectly normal state, 
awake in broad daylight, and not in a dream, so that a 
hypnotic hallucination cannot even be imagined. 

This narrative, accurate in its smallest details, 
and confirmed by the Rector of St. Luke’s, Mr. 
Davis, who sent it to Professor Adams, of Cam¬ 
bridge, can hardly be treated as “humbug” or as 
“stuff and nonsense,” as many critics wish me to 
do. Does not common sense authorize us simply 
to turn our backs on these people? To deny such 
an observation is to deny everything. 

We are often told that we must not believe every¬ 
thing we hear, and that there are tricksters and im¬ 
postors about. This I have said myself a dozen 
times. But there are cases when invention is not 
imaginable, and this is one of them. 

The word “coincidence” also often comes from 
the lips of critics. I should like to know what busi¬ 
ness that word has here. Is there no such thing 
as cause and effect? Is not the defunct person the 
cause of the apparition? 

Do you not think, dear readers, that it is time to 
become positive in our statements and to declare 


54 HAUNTED HOUSES 

definitely the proved truth: The dead continue to 
live. 

Let us now go into the following observation: 

I had a friend of the name of Charles, a young man 
of sixteen [writes a correspondent]. It was in 1908. 
One evening, on coming home, I heard my name called 
several times very clearly, and I recognised the voice. It 
was troubled, imploring, but very soft. 

Much concerned in spite of myself, I only got to sleep 
very late, and almost immediately afterwards I was awak¬ 
ened by a touch on my forehead and a voice calling me. 
I distinctly saw Charles at my bedside and he said: 1 ‘ Good¬ 
bye, good-bye, I am all right; console my people,” and 
he slowly disappeared. Then, nothing more! 

In the morning I rushed round to our friends. They 
were much perturbed, as Charles had not come home that 
night. 

Instinctively, for some unknown reason, I thought of a 
little property they had in the country, and, confiding my 
fears to the family I took them there. In the garden, in 
an arbour, we found his body on the ground. In his right 
hand he held a flask, which contained traces of cyanide. 

He had died by his own hand and had told me by that 
manifestation. 

That, dear master, is what I can guarantee as being 
exact, and which you may investigate if you like. 

Henry Bourgeois 

(Of Macon). 

The connection between the manifestation and the 
act of suicide is certain. 

To invoke the subconscious, or the subliminal, or 
anything else you please, does not furnish us the 
solution of this vision or audition. We can find no 
other explanation but the act of the suicide himself. 
And he acted after his death. 

I should also like to know how one can explain 
—and what right one has to deny—the following 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


55 


observation, due to my colleague of the Royal 
Astronomical Society of London, the Rev. Charles 
Tweedale: 

On Friday, the 10th of January, 1879, having awakened 
out of a first sleep, I saw the moon shining in by a south¬ 
ern window and lighting up my room. My eyes were at¬ 
tracted towards the panels of a cupboard let into the 
wall, which served as a press. I suddenly saw a form 
appearing before me on the panels of the cupboard. Dim 
at first, it became gradually clearer, until I recognised 
my grandmother’s face. I observed her for several sec¬ 
onds, when the vision slowly faded and disappeared. A 
peculiarity struck me and engraved itself on my memory. 
It was that my grandmother’s head was covered in the 
old fashion with a gophered bonnet. I was not at all 
startled, but thought that I was the victim of an illusion 
due to the moonlight, so I turned over and went to sleep 
again. 

The next morning at breakfast I commenced to tell the 
story of the nocturnal apparition, when, to my great sur¬ 
prise, my father abruptly left the table in great agitation 
and went out of the room. I asked my mother for an 
explanation. She motioned me to be silent. When the 
door was closed she said to me: “Charles, I am going 
to tell you the strangest story I ever heard. This morn¬ 
ing your father told me that he awoke in the night, and 
that he saw his mother standing by his bedside, but that 
when he tried to speak to her she was gone.” 

This conversation took place about 8.30 on the morn¬ 
ing of Saturday, January 11. Before noon we received 
a telegram to say that my grandmother had died in the 
night. But that was not the end of the story, for my 
father heard afterwards that my sister, who lived twenty 
miles away, had also seen my grandmother appear. Thus, 
three persons, independently of each other, had the same 
vision. My father noted the exact hour—2 a.m. 

I am certain that the moon was not far from the 
meridian at the time of the apparition, and that it was 
about two, which is a notable confirmation of the time 


56 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


noted by my father. My aunt also put the instant of 
the apparition she had witnessed after the death, which 
took place at a quarter past twelve. Hence we may con¬ 
clude that the deceased, though apparently dead, was suf¬ 
ficiently alive some hours afterwards to manifest herself 
to different persons separated from each other by consid¬ 
erable distances. 

On the subject of the “apparel of spirits,” I wrote to 
my uncle asking him for information on certain points. 
Here is an extract from his reply: 

“You ask me whether the sketch of the bonnet which 
you send me has any analogy with the mortuary head¬ 
dress of the deceased. The resemblance is striking. It 
is, indeed, the gophered bonnet which your grandmother 
wore all the time she was ill, and your whole description 
of the phantom agrees with the aspect of the dying per¬ 
son at the moment of her death. That is the plain truth, 
and I can, if necessary, give you my oath to it.” 

The fact I have related has so many guaranties of au¬ 
thenticity that it cannot be treated with any suspicion. 

Charles Tweedale, F.R.A.S. 

I considered it useful to give the above narrative 
in full. It is noteworthy in that it records an ob¬ 
servation made an hour and three-quarters after the 
death, and seen independently by three persons. 
The death took place a quarter of an hour after mid¬ 
night, and the apparition was seen at two o’clock. 

What is the explanation? 

It is obviously impossible here to imagine any sort 
of fraud. 

Illusion or hallucination of those independent wit¬ 
nesses seems to me inadmissible. The narrator 
declares that for him and for his father the phantom 
was there objectively, and the bonnet is adduced as 
proof. It seems to me that the reality of the appari¬ 
tion may be interpreted in the sense that the de¬ 
ceased acted upon the spirits of her children, and 
that this suggestion translated itself into an image. 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 57 

A dead person can act at a distance npon a living 
being, and can manifest in some form or other, no 
doubt, by producing an impression on the brain. 

Whatever may be the interpretation, the appari¬ 
tion itself cannot be denied. 

Next we have a ghost, clearly seen and well ex¬ 
amined by the observer, and the narrative is given 
by the witness himself: 2 

In 1880 I succeeded a Mr. Q. as librarian of the X. 
Library. I had never see Mr. Q., nor any photograph or 
likeness of him, when the following incidents occurred. 
I may, of course, have heard the library assistants describe 
his appearance, though I have no recollection of this. I 
was sitting alone in the library one evening late in March, 
1884, finishing some work after hours, when it suddenly 
occurred to me that I should miss the last train to H., 
where I was then living, if I did not make haste. It was 
then 10.55, and the last train left X. at 11.5. I gathered 
up some books in one hand, took the lamp in the other, and 
prepared to leave the librarian’s room, which communicated 
by a passage w T ith the main room of the library. As my 
lamp illumined this passage, I saw, apparently at the 
further end of it, a man’s face. I instantly thought a 
thief had got into the library. This was by no means im¬ 
possible, and the probability of it had occurred to me be¬ 
fore. I turned back into my room, put down the books, 
and took a revolver from the safe, and, holding the lamp 
cautiously behind me, I made my way along the passage— 
which had a corner, behind which I thought my thief might 
be lying in wait—into the main room. Here I saw no one, 
but the room was large and encumbered with bookcases. 
I called out loudly to the intruder to show himself several 
times, more with the hope of attracting a passing police¬ 
man than of drawing the intruder. Then I saw a face 
looking round one of the bookcases. I say looking round, 
but it had an odd appearance, as if the body were in the 

2 Frank Podmore, Apparitions and Thought Transference, p. 312, 
1894. 



58 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


bookcase, as the face came so closely to the edge and I 
could see no body. The face was pallid and hairless, and 
the orbits of the eyes were very deep. I advanced towards 
it, and as I did so I saw an old man with high shoulders 
seem to rotate out of the end of the bookcase, and with his 
back towards me and with a shuffling gait walk rather 
quickly from the bookcase to the door of a small lavatory, 
which opened from the library and had no other access. 
I heard no noise. I followed the man at once into the 
lavatory, and to my extreme surprise found no one there. 
I examined the window (about 14 inches by 12 inches), 
and found it closed and fastened. I opened it and looked 
out. It opened into a well, the bottom of which, 10 feet 
below, was a skylight, and the top open to the sky some 
20 feet above. It was in the middle of the building, and no 
one could have dropped into it without smashing the glass, 
nor climbed out of it without a ladder—but no one was 
there. Nor had there been anything like time for a man to 
get out of the window, as I followed the intruder instantly. 
Completely mystified, I even looked into the little cupboard 
under the fixed basin. There was nowhere hiding for a 
child, and I confess I began to experience for the first time 
what novelists describe as an “eerie” feeling. 

I left the library, and found I had missed my train. 

Next morning I mentioned what I had seen to a local 
clergyman, who, on hearing my description, said, “Why, 
that’s old Q.” Soon after I saw a photograph (from a 
drawing) of Q., and the resemblance was certainly strik¬ 
ing. Q. had lost all his hair, eyebrows and all, from, I 
believe, a gunpowder accident. His walk was a peculiar, 
rapid, high-shouldered shuffle. 

Mr. Podmore adds: 

Later enquiry proved he had died about the time of the 
year at which I saw the figure. 

This observation is equally inexplicable without 
the hypothesis of a personal action of the deceased. 
Is it, then, possible that the dead sometimes con¬ 
tinue their terrestrial habits? There is more than 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


59 


one example of it, but the mystery remains, because 
their visibility is the outstanding problem. Pod- 
more frankly admits that an extension of the hypo¬ 
thesis of thought transference “has seemed to 
some extravagant.” But to go so far as to sup¬ 
pose that some unknown person at that very moment 
had thought of the old librarian, and that this 
thought had given birth to the vision of his suc¬ 
cessor, who followed the shade walking the library 
and disappearing at the end of the passage, is an 
hypothesis of an audacious temerity much farther 
removed from probability than the admission of the 
phantom as an image projected by the thought of the 
deceased, a very clear phantom, and sufficiently 
material to be taken for a thief and pursued by the 
observer, armed with a revolver. 

I also submit to the imperial reader’s most seri¬ 
ous attention the following observations extracted 
from Richet’s Traite de Metapsychique (p. 403): 

A certain Mr. L. V., of Bordeaux, sitting at his desk, 
has the sensation that the door opens. He turns a little in 
the direction of the door, and sees for a very short time 
his uncle G. A quarter of an hour afterwards a telegram 
arrives to say that his uncle has committed suicide. The 
warning came at 9.30, while the suicide was at 5 o’clock. 
The telegram had reached the Bordeaux post office at 8 
o ’clock. 

There is an observation made, not in a dream, 
but in quite the normal state. (I regret once more 
that people dare not give their names in full, but 
we must take the world as we find it.) This uncle 
appeared to his nephew four and a half hours after 
his death. This is what we must admit and ex¬ 
plain. 

Another observation (p. 409): 


60 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Madame X. sees, on December 28, 1906, at 11 p.m., at 
her bed the form of a woman, whose features and details 
of dress she can clearly make out. This form said, with a 
muffled voice: “I am Helene Ram. I shall come and take 
you away, and we shall be together in the next world/ ’ 
Mme. Helene Ram had died at Hyeres on December 28, 
at 4 a.m. So it was nineteen hours after the death that 
the apparition took place. The details of clothing were 
exact. Mme. Ram had not been ill, and Mme. X. knew 
her but slightly. 

I have too great a respect for Professor Richet’s 
sincerity to refrain from expressing the difficulty in 
reconciling his negation of survival with the ex¬ 
amples quoted by himself. As regards explaining 
the apparitions, that is another matter. 

I shall also ask my illustrious friend how he ac¬ 
cepts the following observation, which he also 
quotes (p. 436) without also admitting the cause of 
the apparition: 

Miss K. was caressing a kitten in her lap, when suddenly 
the animal got restless, rose, spit, and arched its back with 
every sign of terror. Then Miss K. saw in an easy-chair 
close beside her, an old hag, with an ugly, wrinkled face, 
fixing an evil gaze upon her. The kitten went wild, and 
jumped frantically against the door. The terrified lady 
called for help. Her mother came, but the phantom had 
disappeared. It had remained visible for about five 
minutes. It appears that in the same room an old woman 
had once hanged herself. 

Once more, how can we accept all these facts 
without associating them with the dead? We shall 
be reduced to seeing in them nothing but hallucina¬ 
tions without a cause, which yet coincide with deaths 
which took place a more or less long time before. 

And this further observation made by two wit¬ 
nesses. An Italian reader, Countess Carandini, 
gives me this fact: 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


61 


One evening, towards 9 o’clock, when everybody was 
still busy, my sister, aged seventeen, in passing along the 
corridor of our dwelling, was amazed to see, standing close 
to her under the gas light, a tall and beautiful girl, dressed 
like a peasant, whom she did not know. She cried out, 
and the phantom disappeared. She wept with terror, and 
her mother scolded her. Next morning the cook, a girl 
of about twenty-five, came to tell my mother that the eve¬ 
ning before, when she had gone to bed, she had heard a 
breath and felt something like breathing on her face. Open¬ 
ing her eyes, she had seen, standing by her bed, one of her 
friends from the country, a tall and beautiful girl, dressed 
in peasant garb. This pretty girl, said the cook, had be¬ 
haved badly, and she had often given her good advice. 
She had died the day before. 

The old and rather trite hypothesis of hallucina¬ 
tion, does it apply here also? Surely not. There 
are two independent impressions without assignable 
cause, since the death was unknown. We can always 
assume that it was not true, that the story was in¬ 
vented, that the first girl was under an illusion, and 
the second girl a liar, etc. But when these stories 
are numbered by thousands and come from every 
country in the world, we are called upon to examine 
them seriously. 

Let us approach this examination with an open 
mind. 

The apparition of the dead can no longer be 
denied. Let us recapitulate the last observations 
described, without enumerating any preceding ones: 

1. The story told by Cicero. 

2. Lord Brougham’s story. 

3. The mother of M. Belbeder’s friend, dead two 
hours. 

4. The deceased person appearing to Miss Beale. 

5. The companion of Mile. Stella, dead for 
twenty minutes. 


62 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


6. The precentor Russell, dead in an accident. 

7. Charles, who committed suicide. 

8. The grandmother of the astronomer Twee- 
dale. 

9. The English librarian. 

10. The apparition of an uncle to his nephew at 
Bordeaux. 

11. The apparition of Mme. Helene Ram, twenty 
hours after her (unknown) death. 

12. The old woman seen by the kitten. 

13. The double observation reported by Countess 
Carandini. 

A total of thirteen observations, to which we can 
only oppose arbitrary undemonstrable negations. 
Let us admit that the two first are less radically es¬ 
tablished than those which follow them; they yet 
compel our attention. 

If we only consider these thirteen cases we find 
that their degree of probability is equal to what in 
all human affairs is called a certainty. 

And how many other examples could we not add 
to this small selection, if only that of the mother, 
dead for several weeks, who appeared to her chil¬ 
dren as they played in a passage and stopped them 
at the moment when they were approaching a pit into 
which they would have fallen (vol. iii, p. 251). This 
is another quite typical proof of survival. But I 
need not repeat here what has been said and proved 
in vol. iii. 

He who denies the reality of psychic phenomena 
proves his ignorance or untruthfulness. So wrote 
Victor Hugo after his Jersey experiences. The 
dilemma is a radical one. There is no escape from 
it. One must be either ignorant or dishonest to 
deny these phenomena. All independent people who 
have wished to observe them without prejudice have 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 63 

confirmed them with certainty. They can be imi¬ 
tated or fraudulently simulated, just as one may say 
a mass without believing in it, or take the place of 
a priest in the confessional, or as one can cheat at 
cards, or make false coins. But these practices 
prove nothing against truth, and they only serve 
to spread slanderous and absurd interpretations 
among the public. 

Instead of denying all these facts and ridiculing 
them, it would be wiser to look for the best interpre¬ 
tation, to discuss them freely, to respect and study 
them, and obtain guidance towards the solution of 
what is—especially now—the greatest of problems. 

These determinations are of the highest philoso¬ 
phical import. I should like to say of psychic 
phenomena what the mathematician Henri Poin¬ 
care said in 1911 of the spiral nebulae: ‘ 6 This spiral 
form occurs much too often to suppose it is due to 
chance. It is clear how incomplete is any cosmo¬ 
gonic theory which ignores it.” 3 In the same way, 
psychic phenomena can now no longer be eliminated 
or neglected by any philosophical theory. They must 
form an integral part of the study of man. 

Formerly the spiral nebulae were unknown. They 
have only slowly and gradually been discovered and 
studied. At first they were not believed in, but at¬ 
tributed to instrumental illusions. When, in the 
year 1858, I entered the Paris Observatory at the 
age of sixteen as an astronomer in training, I heard 
them say that they were false images due to the 
telescope of Lord Rosse, which was probably 
moulded on optical curves producing those images. 
At present they are becoming the essential element 
of sidereal astronomy. It seems to me that psychic 
phenomena holds the same position as regards the 


3 Henri Poincar6, Legons sur les hypotheses cosmogoniques , p. 24. 



64 HAUNTED HOUSES 

complete knowledge of the human being and his 
destiny. 

The sphere of human reasoning is, in general, very 
narrow. 

There is no case of a savant sceptical with regard 
to these phenomena who took the trouble to examine 
these phenomena to a sufficient extent who did not 
arrive at a conclusion in their favour: Crookes, 
the physicist; Wallace, the naturalist; Lord Lind¬ 
say; Yarley, the engineer; Zollner, the astronomer; 
Kichet, the physiologist; Lombroso, the physician; 
Morselli, the university professor; Professor Sir 
Oliver Lodge, and many others, bear eloquent 
testimony. 

The critics who, from the height of their ignorant 
greatness, judge the seekers occupied in scrutinising 
psychic phenomena, and treat those who admit the 
existence of the soul as simpletons, remind me of 
those geologists who, after examining the surface 
of the terrestrial globe to the thickness of a mile, 
make a classical determination of the interior of 
our planet, whose diameter is 8,000 miles, and fix 
the thermometric degrees of heat at the centre of our 
globe! 

Science advances and progresses in all its 
branches. We have just quoted the opinion of 
Victor Hugo. We may read in his Postscript of My 
Life : “From Francoeur to Flammarion, telescopic 
stars have increased from 60 millions to 100 mil¬ 
lions. ” The poet died in 1885. If he were still alive, 
what would he say nowl Francoeur’s Uranographie 
dates back to 1830, my own Astronomic Populaire 
to 1880. Astronomical discoveries have been multi¬ 
plied tenfold since that last epoch, as have those of 
physics and those of metapsychics. We have seen 
determinations relating to survival which are forced 
upon our attention and upon our philosophy. Yes, 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 65 

progress is there; but how many obstacles on the 
way! 

The readers of my books on this vast subject who 
know the considerable number of observations re¬ 
ceived (letters on the subject alone amount to more 
than 5,600 to date) know that the complete publica¬ 
tion of these observations and their verification 
would represent some twenty volumes of the dimen¬ 
sions of this one, and that I have therefore only 
been able to give summaries and extracts. But 
apart from the lack of space for publishing these 
confirmatory attestations, it should be noted that 
these confirmations are often refused for reasons 
of sentiment and family scruples. Thus we may 
read in the chapter of the Inconnu (p. 181) devoted 
to the manifestations of the dying: 

One of my cousins was seriously ill of typhoid fever; his 
parents never left his bedside, and watched him day and 
night. But one evening, when they were both at the end 
of their strength, the nurse constrained them to take a little 
rest, promising to call them on the slightest alarm. They 
had just fallen into a deep sleep when they started up on 
hearing the door opening. My uncle called out: “Who is 
there ? ’’ My aunt, convinced that they were being called, 
got up at once; but she was hardly seated on her bed when 
she felt somebody embracing her closely and saying: “It 
is myself, mother; I am going away. Do not weep. Good¬ 
bye. ’ ’ And the door closed quite softly. Barely recovering 
from her emotion, my aunt ran into her child’s room, 
whither her husband had preceded her. There she learned 
that my cousin had just breathed his last. 

Mme. Ackeret. 

Algiers, 

April 25, 1899. 

In accordance with my scientific method, I made 
an enquiry from the person who had sent me that 
narrative, explaining to her that illusions and 


66 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


hallucinations are always possible, and that it would 
be advisable for her to consider the value of the 
story. Here is her reply: 


Algiers, 

May 3, 1899. 

Dear Master, 

In spite of my great wish to satisfy you by asking my 
aunt to give you an account of the fact I related herself, 
I cannot do so. My aunt has always desired to keep that 
memory of her son to herself, thinking that perhaps she 
would profane it by speaking of it to strangers, and she 
has only mentioned it to her family. It is a joy to these 
poor people to think of the last leave-taking of their son. 
I do not wish to tell her that I have committed this little 
indiscretion in your favour, as I only did it to benefit 
your noble work and to enable you to add one more ex¬ 
ample to the very conclusive ones you have already made 
known. Certainly there has been no hallucination or illu¬ 
sion. My uncle and aunt, who live in the country in 
Alsace, were quite incredulous in all these matters. On 
hearing similar stories they would laugh and treat the peo¬ 
ple as fools. Now they laugh at those who do not believe 
it, and this memory is always to them a tender emotion, as 
they are sure that their dear son did not wish to leave them 
without saying good-bye. 

M. Ackeret. 

This is not the only case. It is ten times, fifty 
times, a hundred times that similar reservations 
have been made with respect to the desired confirma¬ 
tions. Do these reservations hinder us from 
acknowledging the authenticity of the narratives? 
Surely not. They are worthy of respect. I am the 
more grateful to those strong souls who knew how 
to dominate their sorrows and to yield their precious 
testimony for the advancement of science. 

Doubtless these posthumous allegations astonish 
us, and seem improbable. But reality often is im- 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 67 

probable. Boileau said it before: “The truth may 
sometimes not be probable.’* 

If I were to say that I am the contemporary of 
a lady whose husband spoke to Louis XIV. it would 
naturally cause surprise. Well, Dr. Legrand 
showed us that in 1862 the Duchess de Richelieu 
could say to Napoleon III. in the course of light 
conversation: “Sire, Louis XIV. said to my hus¬ 
band ...” That was in 1710. In 1786, at the age 
of sixteen, she had married the Duke de Richelieu, 
who was then ninety, and she herself was ninety- 
two in 1862. The Duke was born in 1696, and Louis 
XIV. died in 1715. The Duke, a grand-nephew of 
the Cardinal, had been presented to the great king 
at the age of fourteen, on the occasion of his first 
marriage. I myself was twenty years of age in 1862, 
and I could easily have heard with my own ears a 
person connected with a contemporary of Louis 
XIV. So indeed, truth may sometimes be improb¬ 
able. I write these lines in 1923. Let us never deny 
anything. 

French writers of the nineteenth century, and 
even of the twentieth century, generally show a com¬ 
plete ignorance of psychic phenomena. There are 
but two exceptions, and they accept them: Victor 
Hugo and Guy de Maupassant. I do not speak of 
philosophers or special authors, but of literary and 
scientific men. Generally they disdain these facts. 
They even take a sort of pleasure in ignoring them. 

I have no other object but to convince my own 
readers, and I only claim their attention, their thirst 
for knowledge, their freedom of conscience, and 
their desire to know the truth. It seems to me that 
their conviction is now fixed. The survival of the 
soul is proved by positive experimental observation. 
For the present, at least, we find no other explana¬ 
tion of the facts in the state of our knowledge to 


68 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


date. We seek sincerely and with complete inde¬ 
pendence of spirit. The science of the future has 
perhaps some unexpected discoveries in store, which 
may transform our whole philosophic structure. 

What is the duration of this survival? Does it 
amount to the immortality of the soul? 

In principle, there is no reason to suppose that, 
if it survives the body by virtue of its own nature, 
it should be destined to a future destruction. That 
is a metaphysical question outside the realm of 
scientific observation to which this work is confined. 
Observation can only prove that which is con¬ 
temporaneous with it. In the present researches 
we do not prove immortality, hut only survival for 
a certain time. 

In the thirteen cases enumerated above we only 
encounter a short survival, amounting to some 
minutes in Cicero’s story, some hours for Lord 
Brougham’s case, and some hours for the other ob¬ 
servations. We see that in general the manifesta¬ 
tions closely follow the death. This is what we al¬ 
ready saw in vol. iii. 

The essential condition for investigating natural 
phenomena, says Claude Bernard, is to preserve in 
our studies an entire liberty of spirit, based on 
philosophic doubt. From this principle we must 
never depart. 

The study of the soul is far from being completed. 
It has hardly been begun, especially in the experi¬ 
mental field, in which the ground has barely been 
cleared. Now that the principle of survival is es¬ 
tablished on proofs which cannot be logically re¬ 
futed, we can go a little further in our metapsychic 
excursions. And here arises a question, that of 
Haunted Houses. (The last but one of the preced¬ 
ing thirteen observations is a case in point: what is 
the shade of an old woman perceptible to a kitten 


EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS 


69 


and seen by a girl?) In vol. iii (p. 442) I announced 
that supplementary documents could be added to 
the numerous proofs already furnished. We shall 
try. 

Note. —“Seek and ye shall find.” Several readers have 
asked me to indicate the origin of this quotation from the 
words of Jesus Christ published on p. 10 of my book 
After Death. They are found in the beautiful Sermon on 
the Mount, Matt, vii, 7. That sentence, which belongs to 
the Old Testament (Chron.), is written in Hebrew. The 
last cry of Jesus on the cross: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” 
is in the Aramaic language, the language current in Pales¬ 
tine at that time. It was the cry of despairing man: “My 
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” 


CHAPTER II 


HAUNTED HOUSES: A FIRST SURVEY OF THE 
SUBJECT 

Truth and falsehood—Proved realities—Ancient and con¬ 
temporary observations—Legal recognition of haunted 
houses—Broken leases—Certainty of phenomena of 
haunting. 

W HO can believe in haunted houses ? Feeble 
and credulous minds. They are but nurses ’ 
fables, good for frightening small children. 
Such is the general opinion—and such, it would 
seem, must be the verdict of common sense. How 
much is true? How much is false? Quod gratis 
asseritur gratis negatur, as Renan said to me one 
day as we were talking about the new dogma of 
Papal Infallibility which had just been affirmed by 
the Council of the Vatican (1870). What is asserted 
without proof is simply denied. If haunted houses 
were not established by irrefutable proofs it would 
be our right, and even our duty, to deny their 
existence. 

An old proverb assures us that there is no smoke 
without fire. No doubt there is often much more 
smoke than fire, but the popular adage remains true. 
Even the most absurd legends have some origin. 
Now it is remarkable that haunted houses are as 
old as the history of humanity itself. 

In a large number of cases, especially in recent 
and contemporary times, criticism and judicial en¬ 
quiries have found nothing in these ghost stories but 
purely human actions. 


70 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 71 


In the final analysis they often resolve themselves 
into more or less conscious hysterical deceptions, 
mystifications, comedies, farces, and amusements, 
which sometimes degenerate into sinister tricks. 
Somebody wanted to frighten the inhabitants, to 
avenge an injustice, to discredit a dwelling in order 
to buy it cheaply, or simply to annoy poltroons and 
timid dupes. 

But not all the cases can be thus explained. And 
besides, what was the first haunted house? Nothing 
is imitated but that which exists already. The 
tricksters only renew the scenes which have already 
terrified people. Those scenes may have been real 
ones. On the other hand, they may have been 
nothing but timorous interpretations of very ele¬ 
mentary accidents, such as unknown noises, ampli¬ 
fied by the silence of the night, and frightening the 
awakened sleepers. Originally, there may have 
been but a movement of stray animals, dogs, cats, 
rats, mice, night birds, or nothing but the wind blow¬ 
ing through dilapidated rooms, doors and shutters 
banging, a bit of wall crumbling without apparent 
cause, etc. 

If the stories of haunted houses could be reduced 
to these explanations, such commonplaces would not 
deserve a special chapter in this work. But that is 
not the case. We must examine the facts without 
prejudice, without any preconceived idea, but with 
the most severe circumspection. We shall then be 
able to arrive at a considered judgment. 

What has not been written about these stories? 
What has not been written against them? For my 
part, I have been for many years 1 examining, com- 


i See among other documents in the Report on Spiritualism of the 
London Dialectical Society (London, 1871), my article, pp. 349-354, 
and in this volume the two haunted houses of Port Glasgow and 
Stradey, pp. 97 and 162. 



72 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


paring, analysing, discussing so many observations, 
narratives, and commentaries that even twenty 
years ago I had, for my personal instruction, com¬ 
posed a large volume which has remained unpub¬ 
lished. 

There are real haunted houses. There are also 
spurious ones. There are genuine bank-notes. 
There are also spurious ones. There are truthful 
people. There are also liars. There are honest peo¬ 
ple and rascals. There are serious people and 
boobies. There are intelligent and unintelligent 
people. 

To reject without examination all that has been 
said about haunted houses would be as foolish as to 
accept everything without examination. 

Old traditions and proverbs must not always be 
despised. “He roams about like a spirit in tor¬ 
ment’ ’ is so ancient a saying that it is lost in the 
mists of antiquity. Whence did it come? What is 
its origin? 

Not all accounts must be rejected, despised, or 
suppressed. It is not all error, illusion, or imposture. 
Here, as elsewhere, if we wish to learn, we must ex¬ 
amine things without prejudice. 

It is in this state of mind that we shall investigate 
this curious problem. An eminent man of science 
whose judgment is highly appreciated by all who 
know him, General Berthaut, late Director of the 
Army Geographical Service, and a former Member 
of Council of the Paris Observatory, recently wrote 
me a long letter, of which I shall, with his permis¬ 
sion, publish the beginning: 

Dear Master, 

Haunted Houses? It does not surprise me that 
they have encroached upon you. You distrust them, and 
you are right, a hundred times. Not that they are more 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 73 


improbable than any other psychic manifestation, but be¬ 
cause there is a greater likelihood of interested parties and 
because they almost always lend themselves to fraud. 
There are too many reasons why living persons should 
wish to discourage people from inhabiting such and such 
premises for the haunted house to remain free from suspi¬ 
cion. There are too many facilities for combining noises, 
displacements of objects, and even so-called apparitions 
for a free acceptance of all that is told. And, apart from 
trickery, there are sometimes natural sources, not of a 
psychic character, but difficult to particularise. Finally, 
there is humbug and more or less morbid pleasantry of a 
doubtful taste, which can play their part even if no in¬ 
terests are engaged. I can, if you like, give you an example 
of this, a story of a haunted house or rather a flat, told 
by my friend Vibert, the painter, who died in 1902. It took 
place in Paris, I know not where or when—I have forgotten 
the names, but I have kept the remembrance of the facts. 
The police were notified, but their search proved unavail¬ 
ing, and it was discovered quite by chance that the 
whole thing was a joke perpetrated by a studio full of 
painters. 

Human ingeniousness is great! I do not consider it 
sufficient, for establishing the reality of haunting, that the 
manifestations observed should remain unexplained, that 
the phenomena should be incontestable, recognised, and 
not, in the general opinion, due to any assignable cause. 
For this only proves that nobody knows the natural cause, 
not that the natural cause does not exist. 

I consider that the only facts worth retaining are those 
which prove their own extra-natural origin, both in the 
category of haunted houses and in all other varieties of 
psychic phenomena. 

I am quite of the opinion expressed by the learned 
General. And, after all precautions have been taken, 
we shall soon have here under our eyes typical and 
rigorously observed examples, into which no doubt¬ 
ful element can have entered. 

Having had occasion for more than half a century 


74 


IAUNTED HOUSES 


to examine these more or less strange and confused 
observations of haunted houses, which are often 
annoying and absurd, I believe I have the right to 
affirm here, somewhat crudely perhaps, but clearly, 
that the people who jeer at stories of haunted houses 
and deny their reality suffer from a special form of 
myopia, so that their horizon does not extend much 
beyond the tip of their nose. 

I have just said that I have studied these special 
phenomena for a long time. I shall commence this 
chapter with a memory which goes back sixty-three 
years. 

In the course of 1860, coming back from the Ob¬ 
servatory daily towards the Seine, I often passed by 
a street which has been absorbed by the Boulevard 
Saint-Germain, then just planned out. It was the 
Rue des Noyers, celebrated just then as the object 
of a judicial enquiry made at the request of the 
tenant of a haunted house, who had been obliged to 
take refuge elsewhere (M. Lesage, housekeeper of 
the Palais de Justice). The tenancy was broken by 
order of the court. That is a first point of fact not 
generally known, and it is valuable. 

I have received hundreds of accounts of haunted 
houses and of occult phenomena. But whatever the 
number of narratives addressed to me and to others 
who collect these strange phenomena, it is certain 
that nobody is in a hurry to make them known. To 
quote but one example, while I was busy comparing 
the manifestations of dying persons, I received the 
following card in reply to my enquiry of the 
Inconnu: 


Vendome, 

March 30, 1899. 

My reply to both your questions is in the negative. Yet 
I have been a witness, and my house, which I inhabit alone, 
has been the scene of absolutely inexplicable occurrences, 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 75 


which I have correlated with the greatest care, because I 
should have been unable to find any servants to help me. 

Anna Proubat. 

(Letter 59). 

The time has gone by when the phenomena of 
haunting could be treated as imaginary tales. There 
are too many of them. Examples are as numerous 
as they are varied. They are generally incompre¬ 
hensible, and often of a comic appearance. 

But let us return to the case of the Rue des Noyers 
just mentioned. 

Well, in the course of the year 1860, when I was 
an astronomer-apprentice at the Paris Observatory, 
returning every day to my relatives (then living in 
the Boulevard des Italiens), I often passed through 
the Rue des Noyers. There was then a house known 
to be upset by a rapping spirit, a very turbulent 
spirit indeed. The following narrative embodies 
what was said about it. Under the heading “A 
Scene of Sorcery in the Nineteenth Century,’’ the 
journal Le Droit, in its issue of June, 1860, told the 
following: 

Very strange things are happening just now in the Rue 
des Noyers. M. Lesage, housekeeper at the Palais de 
Justice, occupies a flat in that street. For some time past, 
missiles thrown from nobody knows where have come and 
smashed his windows. They have penetrated into his 
dwelling, hit persons, and injured them more or less seri¬ 
ously. They are large logs of half-burnt wood, or heavy 
pieces of coal. M. Lesage’s servant has received several 
on her chest and has received severe bruises. 

M. Lesage made up his mind to call in the police. Con¬ 
stables were put on the watch, but they themselves were 
hit by the invisible artillery and they were unable to locate 
it. 

Existence having become unbearable in a house where 
was a perpetual alarm, M. Lesage asked his landlord to 


76 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


cancel the lease. This request was granted, and it was 
decided to send for the purpose of registration a bailiff of 
the name of Vaillant, a name which was particularly ap¬ 
propriate to the circumstances. 

The officer of the court had hardly begun his work when 
an enormous block of coal, thrown with great force, flew 
in through the window and hit the wall, breaking up into 
powder. Nothing disconcerted, M. Vaillant took up this 
powder, as Junot once did the earth thrown up by a bullet, 
and spread it on the page he had just written. No ex¬ 
planation has been found for this bombardment with vari¬ 
ous missiles. But it is hoped that the enquiry pursued by 
M. Hubaut, the inspector of the Sorbonne quarter, will 
elucidate the mystery. 

The “enquiry ’’ elucidated nothing at all, and we 
may remark that half the time these enquiries have 
only served to confirm the reality of the facts, with¬ 
out discovering any explanation. Not finding any 
does not prove that there is no hidden natural cause. 
But let us not conclude hastily. It should be noted 
that the objects thrown came from the immediate 
vicinity and not from a distance. In my prolonged 
investigations, prompted by a scientific curiosity, I 
came to the conclusion that a classification is essen¬ 
tial if we are to find our way among these rather dis¬ 
concerting phenomena. These curious throwings of 
objects have been observed hundreds, nay, thousands 
of times. Their cause is a conscious and invisible 
agent. They have often been associated with possi¬ 
ble acts of deceased persons, but not always, or 
rather, we are often unable to discover the existence 
of a deceased person who might have something to 
do with them. If the discarnate play a part—and we 
shall have to enquire into that—the incarnate cer¬ 
tainly do also. It appears that the invisible forces 
act upon the visible world by using the organic 
faculties of mediums or intermediaries, mainly girls 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 77 


or young women (sometimes youths), whose pres¬ 
ence makes the ignorant public—and even certain 
judges of the same negative value—believe that they 
are the responsible agents—in other words, practical 
jokers of a more mischievous type than any of the 
inquisitors. 

In the dwelling of the Rue des Noyers the servant, 
herself a victim of these happenings, was a young 
girl. 

This first recollection of my youth presents three 
instructive features: (1) The presence of unex¬ 
plained phenomena; (2) the cancelling of a lease 
consequent upon their proof; (3) the presence of a 
young girl, herself a victim of these occurrences. 
Now, similar facts had already been observed in 
1849, not far away, in the Rue des Gres, near the 
Sorbonne, and had also been the subject of legal in¬ 
formations. The Gazette des Tribunaux of Feb¬ 
ruary 2, 1849, brought the following observation: 

An extraordinary event, repeated every evening, every 
night, for the last three weeks without its cause being dis¬ 
covered by the most active search and the closest and most 
persistent watch, has been exciting the populous quarter 
of the Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, of the Sorbonne, and 
the Place Saint-Michel. 2 What we are about to relate 
actually took place, although at the earnest request of the 
public an enquiry, both judicial and administrative, was 
held for several days without throwing any light on the 
subject. 

During the work of demolition undertaken to make a 
new street which is to join the Sorbonne to the Pantheon 
and the Law School, cutting through the Rue des Gres and 
going up to the old church, the workers arrived at a coal 
and timber yard where there is an uninhabited house, com¬ 
municating with the yard and having only one storey with 


2 At that time the Place Saint-Michel was where we now have 
the Place M6dicis; neither the Boulevard Saint-Michel, nor the 
Rue Soufflot, nor the Boulevard Saint-Germain existed then. 



78 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


an attic. That house, situated at some distance from the 
street and separated from the condemned houses by large 
excavations, has been assailed, every evening and during 
the nights, by a hail of projectiles, which, by their volume 
and violence of projection have caused such damage that 
the house in question has been pierced and its doors and 
windows reduced to splinters, as if the house had sustained 
a siege and a bombardment by catapult. 

Whence came these projectiles, consisting of paving- 
stones, fragments of walls demolished close by, even whole 
mouldings which, owing to their weight and the distance 
from which they came, could not have been thrown by the 
hands of a human being ? It has been impossible to find out. 
In vain has a night and day watch been kept under the 
personal direction of the inspector of police and other 
competent persons. In vain has the head of the secret 
service remained on the spot, and in vain have watch-dogs 
been placed every night in the neighbouring yards. Nothing 
has given a clue to the phenomenon, which the people in 
their credulity attribute to mysterious causes. The missiles 
which continue to rain noisily upon the house are projected 
to a great height, over the heads of those posted on the 
roofs of the small neighbouring houses. They seemed to 
come from some distance and all hit the mark with an 
almost mathematical precision without deviating from the 
parabolic line evidently traced for them. 

We shall not enter on further details of these happenings, 
which will doubtless receive a prompt explanation. While 
congratulating those who have taken the proper measures, 
we may remark that in similar circumstances, and with a 
similar sensational effect in Paris, a rain of small coins 
has fallen every evening in the Rue Montesquieu, attracting 
all the boobies of Paris, Also, all the bells have been rung 
in the Rue de Malte by an invisible hand. It was impossi¬ 
ble to make any discovery or to find the material cause of 
the phenomena. Let us hope that this time definite results 
will be obtained. 

Such is the story in the Gazette des Tribunaux . 
Let us add, as before, that the objects come from the 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 79 


vicinity and that all this was extremely well known. 

The most minute researches led to no result, 
neither in 1860 for the Rue des Noyers, nor in 1849 
for the Rue des Gres. After losing much time, no¬ 
body seems to have worried about the matter. But 
a piquant circumstance is that the proprietor of the 
house was accused of himself being the author of the 
trouble in his own interest, and he gave a violent 
denial of the allegation, and brought the papers in 
question before the law courts, the summons being, 
according to Le Droit, in the following terms: 

In the year eighteen hundred and sixty, the ninth day 
of July, at the request of M. Lerible, formerly a merchant 
in coal and timber, house owner, living in Paris, Rue de 
Grenelle-Saint-Germain 64, and electing domicile at his 
dwelling: 

I, Aubin Jules Demouchy, a bailiff of the Civil Tribunal 
of the Seine sitting in Paris, living there at Rue des 
Fossees-Saint-Victor 43, and undersigned, have called 
upon M. Gar at, Director of the journal La Patrie, in the 
office of the said journal situated in Paris, Rue du 
Croissant, 

To insert, in reply to the article published on the 27th 
day of June last in the journal La Patrie, the following 
summons made by the plaintiff on the journal Le Droit , said 
plaintiff offering to charge himself with the costs of inser¬ 
tion in the case of his reply exceeding the number of lines 
which the law authorises him to publish. 

I, Aubin Jules Demouchy, a bailiff of the Civil Tribunal 
of the Seine 

Have summoned M. Francois, in the name and as direc¬ 
tor of the journal Le Droit, in the office of the said journal, 
situated in Paris, Place Dauphine, 

To appear on the 8th day of August, 1860, before and in 
the audience of MM. the President and Judges comprising 
the sixth chamber of the tribunal of First Instance, at 
Paris, at ten o’clock in the morning, for the following 
cause: 


80 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Whereas, in its issue of the 26th June last, and on the 
occasion of occurrences which are alleged to have taken 
place in a house in the Rue des Noyers, the journal Le 
Droit reports that similar occurrences took place in 1847, 
in a house in the Rue des Gres; 

And whereas the writer accompanies his observations 
with explanations which tend to show that the attacks upon 
the house in the Rue des Gres in 1847 emanated from the 
occupier of the house himself, and that he brought them 
about in bad faith, to obtain, by a dishonest speculation, 
the cancellation of his lease; 

And whereas the facts described in the journal Le Droit 
occurred, not in 1847 but in 1849, in the house which the 
plaintiff occupied at that time in the Rue des Gres; 

And whereas these imputations are of a nature calculated 
to damage the reputation and consideration of the plaintiff; 

And considering that they are the more reprehensible 
as none of the verifications aimed at have taken place, and 
that those events which, for example, occurred in the Rue 
des Noyers have remained unexplained; 

And considering that the plaintiff was, since 1847, the 
proprietor of the house and plot which he occupied in the 
Rue des Gres; 

And considering that the supposition put forward by the 
journal Le Droit has no reason and has never been es¬ 
tablished ; 

And whereas the terms employed by the journal Le 
Droit constitute a libel and fall under the application of 
the penalties provided by Law; 

And that all the journals of Paris have made use of the 
article in Le Droit, and that the honour of the plaintiff, 
has, by the fact of this publication, suffered a damage for 
which reparation is due to him; 

For all the above reasons 

Let M. Francois be warned of the imposition of the 
penalties provided by Law and for his condemnation, even 
in his own person, to pay the plaintiff the damages which 
the latter will claim in Court, and which for the present, 
he declares he will employ for the benefit of the poor, and 
let him be informed also that the judgment obtained will 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 81 


be inserted in all the journals of Paris at the expense of the 
defendant, and that he may be condemned to pay costs, 
without prejudice; 

And in order that the defendant may not be in ignorance, 
I have, at his domicile and speaking as above, served upon 
him a copy of these presents. 

Cost: 3 frs 55c. (Sg.) Demouchy. 

Registered in Paris, July 16, 1860. 

Received 2 frs. 20c. (Sg.) Duperron. 

Declaring to the defendant that, failing his giving satis¬ 
faction on the present summons, the plaintiff will proceed 
by course of Law, 

I, at his domicile, and speaking as above, have served 
upon him this copy. 

Cost: 9 frs. 10c. (Sg.) Demouchy. 

Legal damages and cancelled leases are things 
which do not authorise one to laugh childishly about 
things one does not understand, or to deny every¬ 
thing blindly. 

These two observations of the throwing of stones 
and various missiles, made in 1860 and 1849, have 
been the object of several enquiries, one of which 
was published by the Marquis de Mirville, in 1863, 
in his great five-volume work, Spirits and their 
Various Manifestations , which he had the politeness 
to send me. The conclusion arrived at was that 
there was no explanation, and that all those pro¬ 
posed were absurd or ridiculous. But a conclusion 
which may astonish us is that which confirmed the 
Marquis de Mirville in his conviction as to the exis¬ 
tence of the Devil! Let us listen to him for a 
moment: 

We were talking with Lerible, the coal merchant. 
“Would you believe it,” he said, “that they had the nerve 
to accuse me of all this—me, the owner, who has been more 
than thirty times to the police to ask them to deliver me, 
who on the 29th of January went to the Colonel of the 


82 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Twenty-fourth, who sent me a platoon of his Chasseurs? 
I told them, ‘You may believe it is myself, if it amuses you 
—that makes no difference; only tell me how, and catch 
the person whom I set to work, for you see it is not myself, 
because I stand before you. Whether it is I or another 
whom I employ, catch the fellow. It is your business, and 
you will not find me ungrateful.’ But indeed, the poor 
devils did what they could, and caught nobody. And an¬ 
other thing: Suppose it was I who demolished myself. 
Should I have furnished the house specially with new furni¬ 
ture, as I did a month before? Should I have had all my 
furniture spoilt, like this sideboard with mirrors, which 
the stones seemed to be aimed at? Look here, sir,” and 
the poor man showed us all the fragments of his broken 
crockery, his clock, his flower vases, his mirrors, fragments 
of things valued at 1,500 francs (and no wonder), and 
we found his defence altogether valid, especially when 
he added: “And what about myself? Should I not first 
of all have taken shelter ? Did not the stones fall upon me 
as roughly as upon the others? Look at this wound near 
my temple. It might have killed me. Indeed, sir, we 
must agree that some folks are funny. * 1 

One very curious detail he pointed out. The room was 
full of stones and long flat tiles. Their shape struck us. 
“How was that?” we said. “Oh! that is because I had 
closed my shutters. Look at that slit; it is very long and 
narrow. Well, sir, no sooner had I closed my shutters than 
all the stones had the shape which you see, and all came 
through this slit, which is just about that width.” We 
were astounded by the cleverness of the conjurers, who 
could aim so well and from such a distance. It was a 
chance of 1 in 100,000, even at twenty-five paces, not to 
speak of a mile. 

The good man had interested us, but we wished to ques¬ 
tion his neighbours. We went to several of them, including 
a large book-seller, who lived at the corner. Like the rest, 
he found the thing absolutely inexplicable, and the accusa¬ 
tion of jugglery more absurd than anything. 

We then went to the police inspector. He was away, but 
his two secretaries were in the office, and his representative 


FIEST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 83 


said: “The police inspector would tell you, as I do, that 
in spite of our tireless searches, nothing has been found 
out, and I can tell you beforehand that nothing ever will 
be.” “Thank you; we were quite sure of it, but it is good 
to hear you say so. ’ ’ 

So speaks the Marquis de Mirville concerning 
that haunted house of the Rue des Noyers. We 
agree with Bozzano that this is the story of almost 
all the enquiries made into such cases. 

In fact, the causes of the phenomena remain im¬ 
penetrable. They force the sceptics to satisfy them¬ 
selves with more or less absurd conclusions, which, 
while harmless so long as the manifestations con¬ 
tinue in full, acquire consistency and hide the truth 
when the manifestations stop and the impression 
of incontestable authenticity gained by onlookers be¬ 
comes enfeebled. 

The remarkable incident of projectiles formed so 
as to be able to pass through a narrow slit in a 
shutter, though marvellous, is not at all rare in this 
series. Indeed, the curious precision with which the 
projectiles hit their target is similar to many other 
cases of missiles which systematically and surely 
hit a certain mark. It is almost the rule in such 
cases. Everybody will understand the great theo¬ 
retical importance presented by these episodes, since 
their origin implies an intention served by super¬ 
normal faculties and powers. So we may excuse 
those who believe that the Devil is mixed up in the 
affair. Remember also that the Devil is even now 
associated with all Christian teaching. 

Let us at the same time acknowledge the first im¬ 
pression we have in these strange actions, which 
is their triteness and vulgarity. Whatever the cause, 
they are peculiar forms of exercise. “ Intelligent 
forces in action!” Surely very poor intelligences. 


84 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Let us pass on to other manifestations. Let us 
learn freely, without preconceived opinion. 

These physical exercises, bizarre and incompre¬ 
hensible, are the same everywhere and always, with 
some strange variations. Among the many examples 
in my collection I shall pick out a recent one which 
offers the most complete analogy with the two de¬ 
scribed above. It was communicated to me in 1922 
by a Protestant clergyman of the Ardeche, M. Laval, 
and has also been observed with certainty. 

Here is this curious narrative, numbered 5,208 in 
the metapsychic correspondence I commenced in 
1899 (see L’lnconnu, p. 88, and Death and its Mys¬ 
tery, vol. i, p. 15). 

Saint-Michel-de-Chabrillanoux. 

December 15, 1922. 

Dear Master, 

The incomprehensible facts which I related to you 
last year, begging you for an explanation, and which you 
asked me to verify as far as possible, are unexceptionable. 
I am sending you an exact plan of the house and its sur¬ 
roundings, as well as the names of these good people, who 
are much impressed by what has happened to them, and 
you can locate the spot geographically. I do not see any 
objection to your publishing my name and address, if you 
consider it useful for your scientific documentary evidence. 

Poor M. R. has suffered a great deal mentally from the 
stupidity and credulity of the people, who look on him 
as one sold to the “evil spirits.” Perhaps it would be bet¬ 
ter not to give his name, which I communicate to you per¬ 
sonally, as I do not wish to take away from the scientific 
value of the document. 3 

This M. R. is a farmer in the parish of-, and possesses 

in a neighbouring village some property comprising an old 
house, not far from which is another belonging to M. E. 

s The clergyman is right. I only give the initials. Human 
stupidity being universal, it seems to me equally advisable not to 
print the names of the places, of which I have the plan before me. 



FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 85 


He goes to his farm at the busy agricultural season. The 
nearest houses to these two are 440 yards away. You have 
before you a plan of the two houses, with their hams, the 
streams, roads, and neighbouring meadows; the ploughed 
fields, vineyards, tobacco fields, and woods on these rural 
properties. I have marked the rooms into which the stones 
and apples were thrown from no one knows where; also 
the place, at the crossing of two roads, where I myself was 
hit by a stone, which grazed me vertically from head to 
foot. 

The stones first began to be thrown in the early days 
of September, 1921, and continued (with interruptions) 
until the end of December. The maximum phase can be 
assigned to the first ten days of October. They fell at all 
hours of the day, and even followed M. R. in the fields, 
220 yards away from the house. The front door was hit, 
window No. 1 was broken, window No. 2, which gives on 
to an open space of ground 440 yards long, was the one 
which received most of the hits. The stones arrived with¬ 
out one being able to tell how: they were not seen until 
they touched an object. Some fell vertically. 

M. R. has three children—Heli, twelve years old; Andre, 
aged seventeen; Henri, aged twenty-two—who were very 
naturally accused. Consequently, they were watched and 
spied upon as much as possible, but they were not caught 
in a single suspicious action. 

One Sunday M. R. begged me to write out for him a com¬ 
plaint to the Public Prosecutor. I was anxious, first of all, 
to satisfy myself as to the facts. The next day, at five 
o’clock in the evening, I was in the farmyard, having two 
of the children with me, and facing me, when a stone the 
size of a hen’s egg came down vertically, grazing one of the 
children. A little later another stone grazed me in the 
same way, about 52 yards from the house. The children 
were in sight close by me, and they could not have been 
the cause. The stones fell slowly, and gave one the im¬ 
pression of falling from a height of about 6 feet only. 
This was often remarked. It is incomprehensible. 

I decided to go to bed. Nothing happened in the night. 
The next day, at seven o’clock, in full daylight, while M. 


86 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


R., with a friend, M. D., worked in the room adjoining the 
kitchen, two apples hit the closed shutter of a window and 
touched M. R. The first apple knocked out an old board in 
the shutter which was very loose, the others coming in 
through the space thus created. M. D., believing that I 
was the perpetrator of the deed, said: ‘ ‘ Is it you, M. Laval, 
who are throwing apples at us?” Imagine my surprise! 
It is true that just at the moment when the apples were 
thrown I happened to be outside facing the window aimed 
at. An extraordinary thing was that I heard something 
strike the shutter but saw nothing. Convinced that I had 
not thrown anything, M. D. joined me quickly to see what 
was happening. Some seconds afterwards two other apples 
arrived through the same opening into the room and fell 
at M. R.’s feet. As in the first case, we heard the shock 
but saw nothing. We were greatly surprised, and M. D., 
who is a great huntsman, and who the night before had 
sworn to trace the culprits, told me that he decidedly could 
not understand it. 

The apples came really from the outside. They arrived 
in a horizontal direction with considerable speed. It would 
have been humanly impossible for anybody to hide in broad 
daylight in front of the window, which opens on to an 
empty field 440 yards long. 

The most able man, unless he were quite near the window, 
would never have succeeded in throwing an apple through 
a hole of an inch or so, however well he aimed. 4 

While we were outside, we heard a blow on the window, 
but saw nothing entering from outside. 

M. R. called in the gendarmery of Gourdon, which ar¬ 
rived on the spot. During the four months of these hap¬ 
penings there would surely have been ample time to sur¬ 
prise tricks of children. 

M. R. the elder suspected his only neighbour, M. E., who 
has two sons, aged seventeen and twenty-two respectively. 
I conveyed a remonstrance to the E. family, but they re¬ 
plied: “Yes, we are accused, but we are innocent.” The 
father wrote me the letter appended to my report, and de¬ 
clared he would assist at any enquiry. 


4 A similar observation to that made at Noyers, above. 



FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 87 


In order to show that he had nothing- to do with this 
affair he gave me an irrefutable proof. This is what he 
literally declared to me: 

(1) On September 25, at noon, my elder son was in the 
vineyard, and my younger son in bed. At that hour I 
was nursing my father-in-law, who was dying. M. R., 
who had stones thrown at him, asked me for the rifle. I 
went to the house with him and we shot. Some minutes 
afterwards two stones hit the door. I was then with M. 
R., and my son was still in bed. 

(2) On October 6, at 6 a. m., I was talking with M. 
R. in his farmyard. We were all together, R. and his sons 
and my two sons, when two stones hit the roof of the house, 
and two others the door of the barn. 

Does M. R. believe what is said concerning the death 
of his father? And does he seek to stifle some ancestral 
fears in ascribing the throwing of stones to his neighbours ? 
It is possible, and what makes me credit it is his regularity 
in church since the affair at his house. 

His father, who lived for many years at X-, 5 was 

struck in his old age by a mental malady. One day, while 

his son was away, he left X-and disappeared. His 

people searched for him in vain for several weeks, and 
finally supposed that he had been drowned in the river and 
his body carried away by the current. Seven months after¬ 
wards a chasseur who crossed the bog between- and 

- saw a body floating on the stagnant water. The 

police were called, and a doctor, M. X., said to M. R.: “As 
you recognise the body of your father, go on at once with 
the burial to avoid judicial complications. ’ ’ M. R. obeyed 
the doctor’s injunction, had a coffin made in a hurry, and 
the deceased carried almost secretly to the cemetery, with¬ 
out the assistance of the priest. The parish priest of-, 

a very able man, interpreted the occult phenomena in his 
favour, and his flock reproached M. R. for having de¬ 
prived his father of the consolations of religion. Was it 
not to excuse himself that R. threw suspicion upon the 
E. family? 

M. E. is highly esteemed at-. For twenty years he 


e As stated above, I feel bound to suppress all names. 









88 HAUNTED HOUSES 

has been town councillor, and was always elected first on 
the list. 

Here is also the declaration mentioned above: 

“Having lived for a long time on a good footing with 
M. K., and having up to now considered him a good neigh¬ 
bour, we declare before our conscience that we had no 
part in the inexplicable occurrences at his house.—J. E.” 

“How can we explain these things?” writes Pastor 
Laval. “Are we, without knowing it, plunged into an un¬ 
known psychic environment? Do electro-psychic forces 
exist which show themselves thus?” 

After reading your work, Les Caprices de la Foudre, I 
thought that certain electrical phenomena seemed to be 
associated with a psychic nature we do not understand. Is 
common sense right in attributing such things to the spirit 
of the departed? If so, why are they so queer? 

After co-ordinating a certain number of similar facts, 
do 3 t ou notice a certain connection between hauntings and 
suicides, crimes and tragic deaths? 

In the district interpretations differ. The majority at¬ 
tribute the facts to the spirits of the dead. Others main¬ 
tain that the parish priest of-is an amateur conjurer, 

and that we are his victims. Others suppose trickery. My 
father-in-law, an orthodox pastor, summarily regrets the 
stories in the name of certain Biblical passages. To me, 
for one, the observations are real, and trickery, as you 
may see, is inadmissible. Nor is the hypothesis of an 
hallucination possible; stones and apples are quite ob¬ 
jective. These facts seem to me to belong to the domain 
of the unknown, and to be worth including among those 
which you submit to the thinking public. 

After all, are they more mysterious than those whose 
nature we can explain ? Perhaps they are, only rarer and 
more difficult to prove. It shows a lack of sane philosophy 
to regret a priori all that is outside the sphere of our 
ordinary thoughts. The world we see and think about can 
only be a feeble reflection of objective reality. You have 
discovered the mysterious link between the magnetic needle 
and solar storms. Other links, still more mysterious, must 
join thfe worlds and beings across all the grades we do not 



FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 89 


know of. The new forces which we hardly apprehend will 
form interesting studies for the learned of the future. 
Such facts, insignificant perhaps in appearance, will one 
day change our ideas of the world and of life. 

I was borne at Treignac, in the Correze, in 1885. Lately 
I heard in my native village that some thirty years ago a 
house had been the scene of hauntings. (The house, which 
still exists, is five miles from Treignac.) In the evening 
stones were thrown among persons sitting round the fire. 
In broad daylight grains of rye and buckwheat were thrown 
on the heads of the astonished people. 

It must be noted that the owner had killed himself, and 
the house had been the scene of a tragic event. 

I agree with you that we must study everything without 
preconceived opinions. 

Laval 

(Evangelical Pastor). 

Saint-Michel-de-Chabrillanoux, ARDkcHE. 

We see that these observations offer the greatest 
analogy with the previous ones. In the interval be¬ 
tween the Rue des Noyers in 1860 and the letter 
of Pastor Laval in 1922 I have known more than 
one hundred observations of the same order. The 
above one was made with particular care. 

I thank the author of this narrative for sending it 
in. It may help us to clear up these problems, more 
especially as these studies are varied and numerous. 
In my own case alone, this letter is No. 5,208 of my 
metapsychic correspondence, commenced in 1899, 
which had been preceded by a large number of 
diversified documents. What strikes us most in 
these doings is their commonplace character, which 
gives the idea of more or less stupid forces—though 
occasionally tragic. What also strikes us is that 
children, and often hysterical girls, are almost al¬ 
ways associated with them, and the result is that 
superficial examinations have nearly always stopped 
there, and explained the facts on the basis of trick- 


90 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


ery. Now, the deeper study of the most remarkable 
cases has proved that unknown forces are in action, 
and that often these children and adolescents have 
been the first victims. I have before me at this 
moment a large number of certified cases of leases 
cancelled on the ground that the houses had become 
uninhabitable. 

As we have already remarked, these throwings of 
apples are childish games, and seem absurd to us. 
If, on the other hand, the suicide of the old owner 
had anything to do with them, and if his shade 
subsisted, we could perhaps see in these absurdities 
the posthumous acts of a peasant. 

But let us get back to our first glimpses of the 
sixties. 

About that time, and also under our eyes, so to 
speak, at Poitiers in 1864, and under the observation 
of an excellent observer, Count d’Ourches, with 
whom I was in communication, and who was closely 
occupied with these studies in conjunction with 
Baron Guldenstubbe and General de Brevern, pheno¬ 
mena just as mysterious and inexplicable as those 
of Paris were observed. I have preserved of this 
“haunted house of Poitiers” an account which was 
published at the time by the Journal de la Vienne 
of January 21, 1864. Here it is: 

For the last five or six days such an extraordinary thing 
has happened in Poitiers that it has become the subject 
of the strangest conversations and comments. Every eve¬ 
ning after six, certain singular noises are heard in a house 
of the Rue Neuve Saint-Paul, inhabited by Mile. d’O., 
sister of the Count d’O. These noises, according to our 
information, resemble discharges of artillery. Violent blows 
seem to rain upon the doors and shutters. The first idea 
was that they were due to some urchins or unfriendly 
neighbours. A close watch was kept. On the complaint 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 91 


of Mile. d’O. the police took the most detailed measures, 
and policemen were stationed both inside and outside the 
house. The explosions took place all the same, and we are 
credibly informed that Sir M., a brigadier, was during 
the night before last surprised by a commotion which he 
has until now been quite unable to explain. 

Our whole town is disturbed about this unexplained 
mystery. The enquiries made by the police have hitherto 
been abortive. Everyone is looking for a solution of the 
riddle. Some persons initiated into spiritism say that rap¬ 
ping spirits are the authors of these manifestations, and 
that a certain famous medium, who, however, no longer 
lives in the district, has something to do with it. Others 
say that a cemetery once existed in the Rue Neuve Saint- 
Paul, and we need not specify the conjectures they indulge 
in on that account. 

Of all these explanations we do not know which to 
choose. Meanwhile public opinion is much excited about 
this event, and last night such a large crowd assembled 
under the windows of the house of d’O. that the authorities 
had to requisition a picket of the 10th Chasseurs to clear 
the street. At the time of writing the police and gendarmes 
occupy the house. 

The first idea which occurs to one is, of course, that of 
trickery. An enquiry was therefore instituted, but it 
yielded nothing, and no trickster has been discovered. 

Exorcisms have been tried, but without result, for after 
stopping for some days the noises recommenced with a 
certain violence. They are said to resemble the noises made 
by small bombs. 

But whence do they come? It is impossible up to the 
present to determine their direction. They do not come 
from the cellar, because pistols fired there are not heard 
on the first floor. 

In a third article the same paper attempted to 
satisfy everybody by publishing the following: 

For some time past we have received by every post 
letters from our subscribers or others asking us to give 


92 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


more particulars of the scenes at the house of d’O. We 
have said everything we know. 

It is quite true that singular noises are heard every 
evening from 6 o’clock till midnight, in the Rue Saint- 
Paul, in the house of d’O. These noises resemble those 
which would be produced by the successive discharges 
of a double-barrelled gun. They shake the doors, windows, 
and partitions. Neither light nor smoke is seen, and there 
is no smell. The facts have been proved by the most dis¬ 
tinguished and trustworthy persons of our town and by 
police and gendarmery investigations made at the request 
of the d’O. family. 

M. H. d’Orange believes in physical causes, such as gases 
disengaged from an ancient cemetery on which the d’O. 
mansion is supposed to have been built. However, the 
house is built on the rock and there is no cellar adjoining it. 

For our part, we believe that the strange and as yet 
unexplained facts which for more than a month have dis¬ 
turbed the repose of an honourable family will not always 
remain a mystery. We believe it a very clever form of 
trickery, and we hope soon to see the apparitions of the 
Rue Saint-Paul appear in the police court. 

In spite of this hope, nothing could be found out, 
and the police court has not had to deal with the 
unknown forces producing the raps and detonations. 

As I said before, these things occurred at the 
house of Count d’Ourches and his sister. Mile. 
d’Ourches was a medium, and was, as I proposed to 
call it, dynamo genic. 

In connection with this haunted house of Poitiers, 
we may add that similar noises had already occurred 
in the same town and the same quarter. Gorres, the 
well-known author of a famous work called La 
Mystique, reports that according to Guillaume 
d’Auvergne, deceased in 1249, who was Bishop of 
Paris, a ‘‘rapping spirit” ( Poltergeist ) had got into 
a house of the same Saint-Paul quarter at Poitiers, 
and that he threw stones and broke windows. 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 93 

Pierre Mamoris, professor of theology and author 
of the Flagellum Maleficorum, has reported the same 
history. A certain spirit threw stones, moved furni¬ 
ture, broke windows, even hit people, though lightly, 
without anyone discovering how it happened. 

On this occasion Jean Delorme, parish priest of 
Saint Paul, is said to have gone with some others 
to visit the scene of these strange exploits, and is 
said to have passed through all the rooms armed 
with blessed and lighted candles, holy and Gregorian 
water, to sprinkle and exorcise. 

Note this coincidence of locality: the same town 
and quarter. Let us proceed. 

Here are the manifestations observed at Fives, 
near Lille (Nord), at the same epoch. We read in 
the Independant of Douai of the 6th and 8th July, 
1865, the following account of the very grotesque and 
infantile occurrences observed by the inhabitants of 
a house at Fives: 

1. For the last fortnight some hitherto unexplained 
things have been happening in the Rue du Prieure, at 
Fives, and have caused a profound sensation in the whole 
district. At certain intervals a hail of missiles arrived in 
the yards of two dwellings in that street, which breaks 
the windows and sometimes hits the inhabitants, without 
anyone discovering the place whence they come nor the 
person who throws them. Things have come to such a 
pass that one of the two tenants has had to protect his 
windows with wire netting for fear of being killed. 

At first the persons concerned took to watching, then the 
police were called in, and they held the closest watch for 
several days. This did not hinder the bits of brick and 
coal from falling as thick as ever in the two yards. One 
policeman even received a missile in his back at the mo¬ 
ment when he was trying to explain to a comrade the 
parabola described by the stones in their fall. 

The glazier who repaired the windows broken the night 
before was also hit in the back. He immediately rushed 


94 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


out, swearing to find out who did it, but was no more 
successful than the others. 

For several days there has been a notable diminution 
in the volume of the projectiles, but they are more nu¬ 
merous, so that the excitement continues. However, hopes 
are entertained of soon discovering whatever is mysterious 
about this singular affair. 

2. The curious phenomena which have happened in the 
Rue du Prieure, at Fives, since Thursday, June 14, and 
which we have already described, entered upon a new 
phase on Saturday. 

It is no longer a matter of missiles thrown with extraor¬ 
dinary force at the doors and windows, or more lightly at 
persons. This is what happens now : 

On Saturday eight sous and five Belgian 2-centime pieces 
fell into the yard. The lady of the house, seeing at the 
same time several pieces of furniture moving and chairs 
upset, went to call in the neighbours. The chairs were 
picked up, but they fell down again. At the same time 
a pair of sabots , left at the entrance by the servant, jumped 
about as if attached to the feet of a person dancing. 

In the evening a calendar placed on a chimney-piece 
jumped up and flew about in the air. Shoes placed on the 
floor also jumped about and fell with the soles upward. 

When the night came, the master of the house decided 
to watch. 

Hardly was he alone when he heard a noise. It was 
a candlestick falling on the chimney-piece. While he was 
picking it up, a piece of shell work rolled on the ground. 
He stooped to pick it up, but the other candlestick fell on 
his back. That went on for a good part of the night. 

At the same time, the servant who slept upstairs called 
for help, and she was found in such a state of terror that 
her sincerity could not be doubted when she said she had 
been beaten. She was taken down and put to sleep in a 
neighbouring room. She was soon heard to cry out again, 
and one could even hear the blows she received. The girl 
fell ill and had to go back to her relatives. 

On Sunday morning and the next day Belgian sous and 
centimes were thrown into the yard. 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 95 


In the afternoon Mme. X went out with one of her 
friends after examining the whole house and noticing all 
in order. The door was carefully locked, and nobody could 
enter. On coming back, Mme. X found on her bed a large 
figure of 8 traced out with stockings and socks which had 
been in a chest of drawers. 

In the evening, with her husband, her nephew, and a 
lodger, the whole party in the house, she visited all the 
rooms. Next morning, on going up to the room formerly 
occupied by the servant, she found a curious figure traced 
on the bed with hats, and on the lower stairs a dozen steps 
covered with her husband’s, nephew’s, and lodger’s over¬ 
coats stretched out and surmounted by a hat. 

On sweeping the dining-room, two knives were seen to 
fix themselves in the floor, and another in the ceiling. 

A key fell in the yard, the key of the front door; then 
the key of the writing-table, then silk handkerchiefs, and 
handkerchiefs rolled and knotted, which had vanished for 
some time. 

In the afternoon a circle was found on M.M.’s bed, 
formed of clothes, and in the attic a similar design made 
with a rolled-up hooded cloak and a game basket. 

All these facts are attested by persons of the house, 
who are of a settled, calm, and deliberate character. It 
is all the less explicable as the neighbourhood is well in¬ 
habited and a close watch has been kept for three weeks. 

It may be imagined how the inhabitants of the house 
suffer from this state of things. After first closing up the 
windows on the yard side, they have abandoned the rooms 
where the things happened, and they are now, in a way, 
camping in two or three rooms, and waiting for the end 
of their troubles. 

These things, like those of the Rue des Noyers, of 
the Rue des Gres, of Poitiers, have defied the most 
active watchfulness and the investigations of the 
police. In presence of these manifold statements 
and many witnesses, denial is no longer possible. 
There must be more than one exaggeration. But 
there must also be accurate facts. 


96 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


They have been personally vouched for by Colonel 
Mallet of Douai, a man of real scientific attainments, 
who has made enquiries on the spot and among the 
persons concerned. We may be sure of their reality. 

Let us admit that they are absurd, idiotic, and 
unmeaning, that they resemble tricks of mischievous 
children, and that that, if it applied, would be the 
most natural explanation. Coins flung, shoes dis¬ 
placed, objects moved, blows given, the same trite¬ 
ness as in previous examples (after all, the lower 
strata of humanity are not more spiritual). Boys’ 
tricks? Yet one finds nothing, in spite of the severest 
observation, and we shall see later that these move¬ 
ments are also found in hermetically sealed rooms. 

Before going any further, we may say that the 
intervention of spirits of the dead does not seem 
indicated at all. One might sooner think of goblins. 

We think quite naturally of electrical phenomena, 
such as lightning, but with a certain rudimentary 
intention. 

The phenomena of haunted houses present to us 
on the one hand material occurrences without ap¬ 
parent significance, and on the other hand spiritual 
manifestations, with which certain organic proper¬ 
ties of girls, young women, and youths are associ¬ 
ated. We see how complex is the problem. What¬ 
ever the explanation may be, there are unknown, 
invisible forces in operation. Should there not be 
in the atmosphere certain psychic entities entirely 
devoid of any intellectual or moral value? Our hu¬ 
man race is full of them. If the soul is not destroyed, 
what becomes of the souls of idiots? And animal 
souls, superior to some human ones ? 

One of the haunted houses which have been studied 
with the greatest care is that of Port Glasgow in 
England, which I had occasion to quote before in 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 97 


connection with the Dialectical Society of London, 
founded expressly for these verifications. Here is 
the narrative, made by an eye-witness 6 : 

From Mr. Andrew Glendinning, 

IVY BANK, 

PORT GLASGOW, 

August 30, 1869. 


The Honorary Secretary, 

Spiritualism Committee. 


Sir, 

I understand you receive written communications 
bearing upon your late enquiry concerning Spiritualism. 
If so, and if it is of any interest to you, I will send you 
particulars of a “house haunting” case in Port Glasgow 
which happened some few years ago, and which I investi¬ 
gated along with the police. 

I am, 

Yours truly, 

Andrew Glendinning. 

[Account forwarded.] 

“In April, 1864, considerable excitement arose amongst 
the people resident in Scott’s Lane, Port Glasgow, owing 
to noises which were heard in an apartment occupied by 
Hugh McCardle, gardener, and his family. The knock- 
ings were heard almost nightly for about two weeks, and 
after the rumour had spread through the town, large 
numbers of men and women assembled in the lane from 
about seven o’clock till ten o’clock every evening. The 
stair, lobby, and apartments were often crowded, but the 
police occasionally passed through the lane to ensure 
order. I visited the house to investigate the matter, and 
obtained the assistance of Mr. James Fegan, grocer. While 
waiting in the room for the commencement of the noises, 
Police Sergeant James McDonald and a constable came 

6 Original English version, from the Report on Spiritualism of 
the London Dialectical Society, 1873, p. 260 .—Tb. 



98 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


in. I told Sergeant McDonald my object, and, as he was 
anxious to expose the trick—if such it were—he consented 
to assist me. The knockings commenced about nine o ’clock, 
and continued for more than an hour. The first sounds 
were similar to what is made by scratching on rough 
boards; then knocking, as if made with a heavy hammer, 
on the floor, under the bed, which was situated immedi¬ 
ately above the outer stair. Sergeant McDonald and I 
took a candle and went below the bed, exactly over the 
spot where the sounds were proceeding from. Mr. Fegan 
stood in front of the bed. J. F. Anstruther, Esq., and 
a number of persons were in the room besides the con¬ 
stable. Being informed that knocks had been given as 
affirmative or negative answers to questions, we asked a 
good many questions, requesting that three knocks be 
given for yes, and one for no. The knocks were rapid 
and loud, and were often given before the question was 
quite finished. During any pause in the question, the 
knocks seem to beat to the air, ‘There is nae luck about 
the house’; I whistled that tune, and the knocks became 
still louder and accompanied my measure. I whistled 
other airs—‘Let us gang to Kelvin grove, bonnie lassie, 
oh’; ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,’ etc.—and, begin¬ 
ning always with the second line, they kept exact time. 
We asked some questions in a low tone—quite a whisper— 
our position being such that no one could see our lips 
moving, so as to guess the nature of our questions; but 
it made no difference in regard to the knocks. As ten 
o’clock struck on the town clock, each stroke seemed sup¬ 
plemented by a sound in the wall above the bed. We got 
a pickaxe, and tore up part of the flooring at the spot 
where the knocking was going on; the sounds shifted 
position for a little, but at times they were the same as if 
a person were hammering heavily on the edge of the 
hole we had made in the floor. 

“We examined minutely the floor, walls, ceiling, etc.; 
we got the children (who were asleep) out of the bed, and 
lifted aside the bed-clothes, mattress, bed-bottom, and, in 
short, did everything we could think of to discover, if 
possible, the cause of the knockings; others (amongst whom 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 99 

were police constables and the superintendent) examined 
the lobby, staircase, and cellars. They likewise tried, by 
knocking on various places, to produce similar sounds, but 
without the slightest success. 

“(Signed) Andrew Glendinning. 

“Port Glasgow.” 

15th October, 1866. The foregoing is abridged from 
letters written me shortly after the occurrences. 

(Initialled) A. G. 

16th October, 1866. We solemnly testify that the fore¬ 
going statement, drawn up by Mr. Andrew Glendinning, 
is exactly correct. 

(Signed) James McDonald, 

Late Sergeant, 

PORT GLASGOW. 

James Fegan, 

Grocer. 

PORT GLASGOW. 
PORT GLASGOW, 

October 16, 1866. 

These things were seen and heard by some of the stran¬ 
gers and neighbours as well as by ourselves. And we 
state solemnly that we did not do any of these things, 
nor cause, nor allow them to be done, and that we have 
no idea whatever how to account for them, as they were 
all quite mysterious to us. 

For self and family, 

Hugh McCardle. 

PORT GLASGOW, 

October 16, 1866. 

I have known Hugh McCardle, gardener, for some time, 
and to the best of my knowledge and belief he is an hon¬ 
est, sober, industrious, straightforward, truthful man. 

(Signed) James Fegan. 

Here, again, we have commonplace trivialities, 
and yet an indication of a thinking entity. These 


100 HAUNTED HOUSES 

phenomena of haunting present every kind of 
aspect. 

I have considered it appropriate to commence this 
first survey of the subject we are about to study 
with these ancient memories, dating back more than 
half a century, because they have, at all events, the 
intrinsic value of showing that my study of these 
queer phenomena is not a thing of yesterday, that 
my appreciation is based upon a lengthy experience, 
and that I can only smile at certain publicists who 
talk about every subject without knowing it and 
lead the public into error by declaring that the 
stories of haunted houses are farcical and unworthy 
of attention. What is unworthy of attention is the 
superficial mentality of ignorant scribes. 

These memories of half a century ago have since 
been supplemented by hundreds of observations of 
various kinds, which confirm and develop them in 
many ways. Two great classes of phenomena chal¬ 
lenge our attention. On the one hand, there are 
noises, agitations, the throwing of missiles, the 
shifting of furniture, the movement of objects 
without contact and without apparent cause, 
the physical facts of telekinesis (reAe, distance, and 
kivkjoic, movement); and, on the other hand, intelli¬ 
gent manifestations, whether of unknown and un¬ 
knowable spirits, or deceased persons, or souls 
in torment. Those are two very different cate¬ 
gories. Everything must be studied. We know 
nothing. 

At the time of Descartes science was to be organ¬ 
ised upon the direct observation of facts by a method 
contrary to the dialectics of verbal discussions. At 
the present time this organisation, far from being 
finished, must be continued by linking up with physi¬ 
cal facts the facts of a psychic order, which are no 
less important. 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 101 

Laplace said on his death-bed: “What we know 
is but little; what we do not know is immense.” 
What was true at the time of Laplace, a century 
ago, is even truer today, in spite of the progress 
of science, or rather on account of it, because every 
advance in the knowledge of things opens new 
horizons before us. 

This applies especially to metapsychics, where we 
comprehend almost nothing. There we have an en¬ 
tirely new world, which it would be very wrong, 
I think, to call supernatural. Should Nature not 
embrace and comprise everything? 

We have examined the observations made in 
Paris in 1860 and 1849, at Poitiers in 1864, at Fives- 
Lille in 1865, at Port Glasgow in 1864, etc. We shall 
have to choose among hundreds to lay even the 
foundation of our studies. Not a year passes with¬ 
out some case or other of a “haunted house.” Be¬ 
fore going further, let us note a very curious ex¬ 
ample, which I take for this purpose from the Revue 
des Etudes Psychiques, edited by the competent and 
sincere writer, C. de Vesme (August, 1904): T 

The English poet Stephen Phillips, known chiefly by his 
plays Herod and Paolo and Francesca, wishing to obtain 
the tranquillity necessary for finishing an important work, 
had rented a country house in the neighbourhood of Eg- 
ham, a quiet little village near Windsor, on the Thames. 
“Yet,” he says, “although the inhabitants of Egham knew 
my tastes and my intentions, nobody had the kindness to 
warn me that the house was supposed to be haunted. 

“I had hardly established myself with my family when 
the most incomprehensible noises began to disturb me. 
I heard in the night, and sometimes even in the evening, 
raps, scratchings, the sound of steps, both heavy and light, 
slow and fast. Cries were added to these noises—choking 

7 Reproduced in Annales des Sciences Psychiques, 1907, pp. 211, 
551. 



102 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


and despairing cries—as of a person mad with terror or 
on the point of being strangled. 

“That was not all. We saw, even in broad daylight, 
the doors open, though no hand was visible. Every time 
I sat down at my desk and started work I was disturbed, 
as if somebody had entered and had walked in the room. 
I turned round, I saw the door opening, moved by an in¬ 
visible force, and I heard as usual the steps coming closer 
and receding in turn. 

“I was never afraid of anything, but these phenomena 
finally annoyed and impressed me. The quiet I had de¬ 
sired was not given to me. And as for work, I could not 
think of it. 

“I was not alone in hearing these noises. My family 
and servants were more disturbed than I. One evening 
my little daughter called out and said she had seen in the 
garden a little old fellow, a sort of dwarf, who had quickly 
disappeared. ’ ’ 

The poor poet could not bear up long against sleepless 
nights. He had never lived in that neighbourhood, but he 
made enquiries, and succeeded in extracting from the 
careful peasants an avowal that a story was current about 
that house. It was said that on the site of the house, 
fifty years before, an atrocious crime had been committed. 
A passing tramp had one night strangled a woman and 
a child. 

When the people of the house knew the story their fear 
became general. The servants one day suddenly left their 
employment, without even taking away their belongings. 
It was only at his departure that Mr. Phillips heard that 
he had not been the only victim. All the preceding tenants 
of the house had left it precipitately like himself. 

“I believe,” says the author of Herod, “I am not a poor- 
spirited person, and should like to hear of an explanation. 
Meanwhile I have given up the house.” 

Learning of these facts, the learned and very 
circumspect English Society for Psychical Re¬ 
search instituted an enquiry by a special commis¬ 
sion, which endorsed the authenticity of the story 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 103 

without, however, clearing up the mystery. Let 
us add that in this case nothing indicates the pres¬ 
ence of the organic cause (a girl or a boy) which 
we mentioned above. 

That haunted house made much stir in England. 
Mr. Phillips himself told in several interviews the 
strange things which happened in his dwelling. All 
went well while he occupied the house, but when he 
left, the owner of the house, Mr. Arthur Barrett, 
found no more tenants. Nobody wanted to live 
with invisible spirits who opened and shut doors, 
knocked on the walls and furniture, and so on. Mr. 
Barrett then brought an action against the Daily 
Mail, one of the papers which had concerned itself 
with the house at Egham, and against Light, which 
had reproduced the reports. 

The Daily Mail was condemned to pay the plaintiff 
£90 and Light was to pay £10. 

The Daily Mail appealed against this judgment, 
as making the position of the Press very difficult 
in these matters, and the higher court decided in 
favour of the paper, in consideration of the fact 
that the house was commonly held to be haunted 
before the publication of the story; and that the 
Press had a right to collect facts of this kind if it 
did so in good faith, and without any intention of 
damaging anybody. 

Such incidents are not as exceptional as many 
think. It is the people who deny them who astonish 
me. A long tijne ago 8 Lombroso wrote that 150 
houses in England had been given up on account 
of haunting. Let us also sample the following 
story. 

The excellent Italian review, Luce e Ombra, pub¬ 
lished in 1905, over the signature of Sgr. V. Cavalli, 


8 Hypnotism and Spiritism, p. 237. 



104 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


an article entitled, “A Radical Means of Expelling 
Ghosts from Haunted Houses,” which is worth 
reading. Here is a translation: 

It is a means difficult to accept, but apparently the only 
means possible in certain desperate cases, when, for in¬ 
stance, the house is apparently “phantomogenic”— i.e., 
contains all the psychic conditions as yet unknown, but 
necessary in this provisionally transcendental physical sci¬ 
ence for producing turbulent manifestations of occult en¬ 
tities. That means consists in the entire demolition of the 
haunted building down to the ground. 

This practice, like many others, goes back to 
antiquity. Here is a quite respectable instance 
which goes back to the sixteenth century: 

Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Naples, offered 
to his secretary, the celebrated Giovani Pontano, 
among other things, a very high square tower, since 
called Pontanicma. This tower, according to what 
Capaccio says in his Historia Neapolitana, vol. i, 
p. 61, has had to be demolished, as it was infested 
by low evil spirits, cacodcemona incoli. 

It is logical to assume that, before deciding to 
destroy an edifice of such importance on account of 
its antiquity and historical value, it must have been 
clear that no method but this very radical one can 
have been found for eliminating the haunting. 

Another example of more recent date is furnished 
by Mrs. Grove in her book, The Night Side of Na¬ 
ture, where we are told that Frederick the Great 
of Prussia had a haunted house in the village of 
Quercey pulled down and another constructed at 
some distance from it. 

We cannot believe that the Yoltairean king made this 
decision lightly, seeing that he first sent officers of the 
guard to investigate the manifestations talked about. The 
representatives of the king on approaching the house were 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 105 


preceded and accompanied by a military march, without 
being able to discover the musicians. A captain who called 
out, “This is the work of the devil!” had his ears boxed 
by an invisible hand. 

Here is another still more recent case: 

Mrs. Ida Pfeiffer, the famous traveller, an intelligent 
woman of a rather masculine character, has noted in her 
Voyage round the World (p. 340) the story of a tragic 
haunting (infestazione) which happened in 1853 in a small 
house belonging to the Residency of Cheribon (Java). 
The population had been so excited about it that the Dutch 
Government confidentially charged a superior officer with 
an investigation of the facts. This witness, stupefied by 
the phenomena, used every means of discovering their 
cause, and had at length to give it up. Finally the Gov¬ 
ernment put an end to it by demolishing the house . 

Thus experience shows that this radical remedy has been 
employed in order to destroy the dynamic focus of the 
haunting, which then disappears. It is remembered in 
connection with sorcery that not only the witches were 
burnt, but also incriminated objects. 

Does the principle Sublata causa tollitur effectus apply 
here also? Was the cause suppressed, or only the con¬ 
ditions necessary for its operation? Cum hoc is not logi¬ 
cally equivalent to propter hoc. The cause may be of a 
psychic, intelligent nature, and the condition, on the other 
hand, material. 

This subject of loci infesti, less rare than one thinks, is 
one of the most obscure of transcendental psychology: 
spiritism, mediumism, odic force, what is at the bottom 
of it? For centuries this obscure field has been explored 
in all directions, and hardly anything has been found. 
There is much digging, but we do not find the source. 
More even than in medicine we can say with Hippocrates: 
Ars longa, vita brevis . 

From the Luce e Ombra report we may conclude 
that the subject has been universally discussed. 
The trial in connection with the haunted house 


106 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


of Egham mentioned above raised certain half- 
legal, half-humorous discussions of these quota¬ 
tions in the British Press. Mr. Andrew Lang, the 
well-known anthropologist, wrote for the Morning 
Post an article, in which he recalled the similar 
trials to which disturbing spirits had given rise at 
all times, and the legislation which was finally made 
on this subject. 

Alfenus, the author of the Digest, is the principal 
authority for those who maintain that the tenant 
of a haunted house is bound to prove something be¬ 
yond a common fear to obtain a legal cancellation 
of a lease. 

Arnault Ferton, in his Mceurs de Bourgogne, is 
of the same opinion as Mr. Lang. He maintains that 
“ phantoms which disturb the repose of people and 
make the night sinister” are a sufficient ground for 
the rupture of a tenancy contract. The Parliament 
of Granada adopted this point of view on several 
occasions. 

In the Middle Ages Le Loyer quotes, in connec¬ 
tion with the discussion of the manifestations in 
Parliament, cases of houses where “ spirits appear 
or make noises of all sorts, and disturb the tenants 
at nights ’ He speaks of Daniel and Nicolas Mac- 
quereau, who rented a house on a lease, “and they 
passed no time when they did not hear noise and 
clatter of invisible spirits, who allowed them no 
sleep or rest. The Parliament broke the lease, thus 
admitting that there could be places haunted by 
supernatural beings. 

Now M. Maxwell, Advocate-General of the Court 
of Appeal at Bordeaux, has quoted decisions of 
several parliaments which, in the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, cancelled leases on account of haunting. 9 


9 See Les PMnomenes Psychiques, p. 260. 



FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 107 


Jurisprudence knows more recent cases. The 
Journal des Debats of April 18, 1912, reports the 
following: 

Mr. J. Denterlander owns a house in Chicago, 3375 
South Oakley Avenue. The rates commission assessed 
that important property on the basis of a rent of 12,000 
dollars. Mr. Denterlander protested. Instead of bene¬ 
fiting him, his house had been nothing but an annoyance. 
He had all the trouble in the world to let it because it was 
haunted. A young woman had died there under mysteri¬ 
ous circumstances—probably murdered—and since then 
every new tenant had been awakened by moans and cries. 
The tenants had been discouraged. One after another had 
given notice. For that reason Mr. Denterlander asked 
for an abatement. After discussion the commission agreed, 
and lowered the basis from 12,000 to 8,000 dollars. Thus 
at the same time they officially recognised the existence 
of ghosts. 


The story of haunted houses is not a fantastic 
romance. 

Much has been written about the cancelling of 
leases and the diminution of the rent value of 
dwellings on account of haunting. I need only re¬ 
call the remarkable thesis upheld at Naples by the 
advocate Zingaropoli in defence of the Duchess of 
Castelpoto against the Baroness Laura Englen, ask¬ 
ing “whether the tenant of a house infested by 
spirits can demand the cancellation of a tenancy 
contract. ’ 9 Here is a summary of it: 10 

There is a vast juridical and doctrinal literature on this 
question. 

The most ancient law, which marks the point of de¬ 
parture of the dispute and on which other discussions have 
been founded, is that of the advocate Alfenus, reported 
in Book XIX. of the Digeste (Tit. II, Law 27). 


10 See Annales des Sciences Psychiques , November, 1907. 



108 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


“Iterum interrogatus si quis iimoris causa emigrasset, 
deberet mercedem, nec nef Bespondit: si causa fuisset 
cur periculum timeret, quamvis periculum vere non fuisset, 
tamen non debere mercedem; sed si causa timoris justa 
non fuisset, nihilominus debere 

This fragment is commented upon by Gotofred (transl. 
Vignali, Digeste, vol. iii, p. 133; Naples, 1857). 

The fear must be imminent, and the tenant has the right 
to quit a dwelling in consequence of a justified fear. I 
remember that when I was a young man, Ludovic San- 
tonio, a very eloquent barrister of Paris, who was also 
my trustee and brother-in-law, obtained the cancelling 
of the lease of a certain client who complained that he 
had not been able to enjoy the house rented on account 
of spectres and ghosts which haunted it, affirming that a 
tenancy was similar to a sale, and that it must transfer 
to the tenant the risks attached to the thing rented. He 
quoted witnesses, above all contest, bringing in the Holy 
Scriptures, and quoting Matthew viii, Mark v, Luke xiii, 
also the passage in Pliny the Younger, Book XXVII, Let¬ 
ter 7. He recalled the story of the shade of Samuel 
which appeared to Saul, and the striking passage of St. 
Augustine in his treatise, De Cura pro Mortuis Oerenda. 

The commentaries and quotations of Gotofred show the 
importance attached to the question. In the Middle Ages 
it was magnified and exaggerated by the preponderance 
of demonological literature. These mysterious manifes¬ 
tations, these disturbances and troubles inflicted upon the 
inhabitants of a house, overwhelmed them beyond meas¬ 
ure on account of the rooted conviction that it meant a 
satanic intervention. One must go through the best-known 
demonological hooks, the Malleus of Sprenger, the Formi- 
carius of Nider, the Disquisitiones Magicce of Fr. Martin 
del Rio, and also those of the Protestant theologians of 
that epoch, beginning with Martin Luther, to see how 
far the Devil’s power was thought capable of extending. 
It is everywhere, and any event, even the simplest, can 
be caused by a malign influence. It is also omniscient, 
and knows the past, the present, and the future. 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 109 


Numerous quotations of ancient and modern authors 
are reported by l’Espagnol del Rio in his Disquisitiones. 

Grimaldi Ginesio, in his Istoria delle Leggi e Magistrati 
del Regno di Napoli (vol. ix, p. 4) in the Pragmatic Com¬ 
mentary, De Locato et Conducto , published by Count de 
Miranda on December 24, 1587, writes as follows. “If it 
happens that in a rented house the tenant, driven by panic 
terror, believes he is assailed by those malignant spirits 
called in Naples the Monacelli , he is allowed to leave with¬ 
out a payment in compensation. ’ * 

All the best-known French legal commentaries deal with 
this question at length, mentioning the jurisprudence of 
the ancient parliaments of Paris and Bordeaux. 

Troplong, treating De la Permutation et de la Location 
(Article 1702 of the Code Civil of Napoleon, which corre¬ 
sponds to 1577 of the Italian Code, par. 197), mentions, 
“ce vice redhibitoire > apparition of ghosts and phantoms 
in rented houses.” 

A certain person having rented a house, says Charondas 
(Responsi, Book VII, 232), he had hardly entered when he 
heard very loud and fearful noises of ghosts which ap¬ 
peared in the house, and gave insupportable annoyance 
to himself and his family. During the night several 
visions presented themselves to his sons and tormented 
them. The tenant on that account demanded of the pro¬ 
prietor the cancellation and annulment of his contract, 
since the owner, before completing the lease, knew that 
these phantoms and spectres appeared in the house, having 
known it from previous tenants who had abandoned the 
house for the same reason. “The fact having been amply 
proved, the law alone was in question.” The court did 
not wish to decide the question of spirits because that 
question appertained to religion . It judged, nevertheless, 
that it had jurisdiction with regard to the observance of 
agreements and contracts between persons, and found 
nothing in Roman or French law to show that fear of 
apparitions or ghosts was held to be sufficient to cancel 
or annul the lease of a house, and judgment was delivered 
accordingly. 

See also Dalloz (Jurisprudence general: Repertoire de 


110 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


jurisprudence, Paris, 1853, vol. xxx, p. 313, par. 190); 
Duvergnier, No. 528; Troplong, No. 197, etc. 

Such is the thesis sustained by the Italian advo¬ 
cate. 

We see that the lawyers are in accord with gen¬ 
eral opinion. I only point out these facts in order 
to establish first of all the following fact: 

Haunted houses have been recognised for several 
centuries by European jurisprudence . 

To deny the reality of haunted houses is an error 
such as is committed by ignorance very often in 
such matters. 

Haunting has always existed. Theologians have 
often commented on these facts, for, during cen¬ 
turies, civilisation has consisted in discussing 
words, instead of studying realities by observation 
or experiment. They explained everything by 
demons. But in our days one hardly believes in 
demons. We require an explanation more accessible 
to verification. 

This first survey has shown us a certain number 
of very varied examples—queer, inexplicable, 
puerile, childish, of a rather irritating triviality, 
but real, observed, and verified—experienced by un¬ 
impeachable witnesses, who suffered to the point of 
abandoning their dwellings where they had ex¬ 
isted very comfortably, and of asking for the can¬ 
cellation of important leases. What can be the 
meaning of these incomprehensible doings whose 
triviality repels us? They reveal intentional acts, 
confused ideas, an inferior mentality. On our 
planet we have no example of thought without a 
brain. Yet certain effects of lightning are so singu¬ 
lar as to give the impression of a hidden intention, 
as in the case of the lady who was discussed at the 
Academie des Sciences (Autour de la Mort, p. 311). 


FIRST SURVEY OF THE SUBJECT 111 


On the other hand, the laws which govern the world 
system do not come from a brain. There is spirit 
in nature. 

What is that “instinct” of a fowl which sits on 
her eggs for twenty days to hatch chickens? What 
is the perpetual renewal of myriads of living be¬ 
ings? The singular facts we wish to study here 
indicate fantastic manifestations of this unknown 
spirit, which is probably unknowable to us. 

It is only, as we say, a first survey. A general 
excursion among haunted houses will be presented 
later. 

We have a large number of facts for careful ex¬ 
amination. They are so numerous that before en¬ 
tering this forest we must first stop to consider 
some examples which have been precisely observed. 
We shall start with one of the most typical and 
complete. 

The true but hardly credible story which fol¬ 
lows will bring us straight to the part of this very 
mysterious domain of haunted houses. 


CHAPTER III 

STRANGE PHENOMENA IN A CALVADOS CASTLE 

H ERE, as I have just said, we penetrate to 
the heart of our subject. The following ac¬ 
count of the strange phenomena observed 
in 1875 in a Norman castle was drawn up by M. J. 
Morice, doctor of laws, on the report of the owner 
and witnesses, and was published in the Annates 
des Sciences Psychiques of 1893. “The honesty 
and intelligence of the owner of this castle ,’’ so 
writes my learned friend, Dr. Dariex, the editor of 
the Annates, “cannot be questioned by anyone. He 
is an energetic and intelligent man. He himself 
noted down every day all the extraordinary facts 
which he and the inhabitants of the castle witnessed, 
just as they occurred. These persons attested in 
turn the reality of the facts. But the owner has 
asked the narrator to see that no names are 
printed.” (We may regret this restriction.) Here 
follows the account, abridged where possible, for 
the observations were numerous, and lasted a long 
time: 1 

About the year 1835 there existed in that parish an old 
castle belonging to the B. family. 

The place was in such a state of decay that a restora¬ 
tion was considered out of the question. It was replaced 
by another, built 150 yards to the north of the old castle. 

M. de X. inherited it in 1867, and took up his residence 
there. 

In the month of October of that year there was a series 

1 See Annates des sciences psychiques , 1893, p. 65. 

112 



CALVADOS CASTLE 


113 


of extraordinary incidents, nocturnal noises and blows, 
which, after ceasing for some years, says M. de X. in his 
diary of 1875, commenced afresh at that time. 

The Chateaux du T. had always passed for a scene of 
fantastic phenomena, and the haunt of more or less evil 
ghosts. The X. family knew nothing of these noises when 
it took possession. 

Here are some extracts from the diary in ques¬ 
tion. These detailed relations are very long, but 
of intense interest. They form, indeed, a docu¬ 
mentary proces-verbal. 

This is October, 1875 [writes the owner]. I propose to 
note down and record every day what happened during 
the night before. I must point out that when the noises 
occurred while the ground was covered with snow, there 
was no trace of footsteps round the castle. I drew threads 
across all openings, secretly. They were never found 
broken. 

At present our household consists of the following: M. 
and Mme. de X. and their son; the Abbe Y., tutor to the 
son; ^mile, coachman; Auguste, gardener; Amelina, 
housemaid; Celina, cook. All the domestics sleep in the 
house, and are entirely trustworthy. 

Wednesday , October 13, 1875.—The Abbe Y. having 
told us that his armchair changed its place, my wife and 
I accompanied him to his room, and we minutely observed 
the place of every object. We attached gummed paper 
to the foot of the armchair, and so fixed it to the floor. 
We left him then, asking him to call me should anything 
extraordinary happen. At a quarter to ten the Abbe 
heard on the wall of his room a series of slight raps, 
which, however, were loud enough to be also heard by 
Amelina, who slept in the opposite room. He then heard 
in a corner of the room a noise as of the winding of a 
big clock. Then a candlestick on his mantelpiece was 
moved with a grating noise, and finally he heard and 
thought he saw his armchair move. As he durst not get 
up, he rang the bell, and I went up. On entering the room 


114 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


I found the armchair had moved over a yard and was 
turned towards the fireplace. An extinguisher placed on 
the base of the candlestick was put on the candle ; the 
other candlestick had been moved into a position where 
it overhung the mantelpiece by about an inch. A statuette 
placed against the mirror had been advanced 8 inches. I 
retired after twenty minutes. We heard two violent blows 
from the Abbe’s direction, who rang the bell and assured 
me that the blows had been struck on the door of his 
wardrobe, at the foot of his bed. 

There is a promising beginning. But let us con¬ 
tinue the diary: 

Thursday, October 14.—Violent blows are heard. We 
arm ourselves and go over the castle, but discover noth¬ 
ing. 

Friday, October 15.—About 10 p.m. the Abbe and 
Amelina clearly heard steps imitating my wife’s and mine, 
as well as our conversation. It sounded to them as if we 
were going along the passage into our room. Amelina 
maintains that she recognised both our voices. Then she 
heard the opening of my wife’s door, but was not fright¬ 
ened because she thought it was ourselves. We were asleep 
and heard nothing. But at a quarter past eleven every¬ 
body was awakened by a series of very loud blows in the 
green room. Auguste and I made a general tour of in¬ 
spection, and while in the drawing-room we heard blows 
near the linen-press. We went there, but found nothing, 
and came down. Madame and Amelina heard a piece of 
furniture being dragged on the floor above, where nobody 
was. It then seemed to fall heavily. 

Saturday, October 16.—Everybody is awakened by a 
series of heavy blows, about half an hour after midnight. 
An armed tour of inspection yields no result. 

Monday, October 18.—The number of witnesses is in¬ 
creased. The curate of the parish has kindly come to 
sleep in the castle since Saturday. He has heard the 
noises quite clearly, and will continue to pass the nights 
here. He will therefore be a witness of anything else 


CALVADOS CASTLE 


115 


which may be heard. To-night Marcel de X. will arrive. 
He will sleep on the second floor, and leave his door open 
so as to estimate the nature and direction of the noises. 
Auguste sleeps in the passage near his door. About eleven 
o’clock everybody was awakened by the noise of a large 
and heavy ball descending from the second floor to the 
first, and jumping from step to step. After half a minute 
there was a very loud single blow, and then nine or ten 
muffled ones. 

Tuesday, October 19.—The parish priest of M. has come 
at our request to sleep here. He clearly heard a heavy 
tread slowly descending the stairs, and then, as the night 
before, half a minute afterwards, a single heavy blow from 
about the middle of the staircase which leads down to the 
ground floor. He has no doubt this is supernatural. 
Marcel returns home with the same conviction. 

Why supernatural? Do we know all the forces 
of nature ? But let us continue this fantastic story: 

The sounds ceased completely until Saturday, October 
30, when everybody was awakened by a series of loud 
blows. 

Sunday, October 31.—A very disturbed night. It 
sounded as if someone went up the stairs with superhuman 
speed from the ground floor, stamping his feet. Arrived 
on the landing, he gave five heavy blows, so strong that 
objects suspended on the wall rattled in their places. Then 
it seemed as if a heavy anvil or a big log has been thrown 
on to the wall, so as to shake the house. Nobody could 
say whence came these blows. Everybody got up and as¬ 
sembled in the passage of the first floor. We made a minute 
inspection but found nothing. We went to bed, but more 
noises obliged us to get up again. We could only go to 
rest at about three o’clock. 

Wednesday, November 3.—At 10.20 p.m. everybody was 
awakened by resounding steps, which quickly ascended the 
stairs. A series of blows shook the walls. We immedi¬ 
ately got up. Shortly afterwards we heard the noise of 
a heavy elastic body rolling down the stairs from the sec- 


116 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


ond to the first floor, and bouncing from step to step. 
Arriving on the landing, it continued on its course along 
the passage, stopping at the balusters. Then came two 
loud thumps, followed by a formidable blow as with a 
carpenter’s mallet swung at arm’s length upon the door 
of the green room. Then a series of tripping and repeated 
raps sounding like the steps of animals. 

Thursday, November 4.—When we were going to bed 
Auguste asked me to come and hear a long series of taps 
he heard on the second floor, where he sleeps now. When 
I got there I heard nothing. I minutely inspected the 
granary and the red room, leaving the door of the latter 
open. Auguste and Armand, Amelina’s brother, were with 
me, and we carried a light. At the end of three minutes, 
five very distinct blows were heard in the red room, which 
nobody could enter without being seen or heard, nor, I 
must add, without coming within range of my revolver, 
which never leaves me, as everybody knows. Hardly had 
I gone downstairs when five more blows were heard, dis¬ 
tinctly by Auguste, and feebly by me, as I was on the 
floor below. 

Friday, November 5.—At 2 a.m. some being rushed at 
top speed up the stairs from the entrance hall to the first 
floor, along the passage, and up to the second floor, with 
a loud noise of tread which had nothing human about it. 
Everybody heard it. It was like two legs deprived of their 
feet and walking on the stumps. Then we heard numerous 
loud blows on the stairs and the door of the green room. 

Wednesday, November 10.—At 1 a.m. there was a rush¬ 
ing gallop in the hall and on the stairs. A big blow was 
heard on the landing, followed by another violent one on 
the door of the green room. This took two minutes. A 
storm of wind, thunder, and lightning came and made 
the night hideous. At 1.20 the door of the green room 
was unlatched. Then there were two loud knocks on the 
door, three inside the room, three more on the door, and 
finally a prolonged rapping on the second floor, forty raps 
at least. This lasted 2% minutes. At that moment every¬ 
body heard something like a cry, or a long-drawn trumpet 
call, audible above the storm. It seemed to me to come 


CALVADOS CASTLE 


117 


from outside. A little while afterwards everybody heard 
a long shriek, and then another, as of a woman outside 
calling for help. At 1.45 we suddenly heard three or four 
loud cries in the hall, and then on the staircase. We all 
got up and went round inspecting carefully. At 3.20 
there was a galloping in the passage. We heard two fainter 
cries, but these were in the house. 

Friday , November 12.—Several blows were heard, then 
shrill and loud cries as if there were several people. More 
plaintive cries in the hall. At 11.45 these stifled cries 
seemed to come from the cellar, then other louder ones 
on the staircase. At midnight everybody got up, for cries 
were heard in the cellar, then inside the green home, and 
finally sobs and cries of a woman in horrible suffering. 

Saturday , November 13.—Not only are we troubled by 
night, but to-day even in the daytime: at 3 p.m., blows 
in the dining-room; inspection without result. At 3.15, 
noises in the green room: we go there and find an easy- 
chair moved and placed against the door so as to prevent 
its opening. We put it back. At 3.40, steps in Madame’s 
room, and easy-chair was moved. We paid a second visit 
to the green room, and found the easy-chair placed against 
the door again. Madame and Amelina went with the 
Abbe to his room, and before their eyes the window of 
the cabinet, which was closed, opened. The wind was 
southerly and that window was to the north. In Madame’s 
room an easy-chair changed place again. In the Abbe’s 
room, the window, which was closed, was opened again. 

Saturday, November 13, at night .—Galloping as on pre¬ 
ceding nights. Thirteen raps on the landing, eight violent 
ones on the door of the green room. The door opens and 
is banged violently. At 12.15 a.m., two loud cries on the 
landing. It is no longer the cry of a weeping woman, but 
shrill, furious, despairing cries, the cries 4 ‘of demons or 
the damned.’* For another hour violent blows are heard. 

Sunday , November 14.—The Abbe’s windows, though 
well closed, were opened during Mass. He had locked 
his door and taken the key with him. Nobody could get 
into his room. During Vespers another of his windows 
opened. 


118 HAUNTED HOUSES 

Tuesday, November 23.—About two o’clock I was 
awakened from profound sleep by knocks in the passage 
and other noises in my room, but the sudden and painful 
awakening did not allow me time to find out their true 
nature. Next morning the Abbe told us he had heard 
at the same hour similar noises coming from the same 
direction. My wife, on getting up, found a general upset 
on her dressing-table. 

Sunday, December 19.—During Vespers fimile, who 
stayed in the house, heard the shovels and fire tongs in the 
kitchen fall on the floor. On returning from Vespers, 
Mme. de X. heard walking up and down. It was the 
noise of heavy steps in the Abbe’s room, where there was 
nobody. 

Monday, December 20.—At a quarter past twelve Mme. 
de X. found on entering her room two chairs placed upside 
down on two arm-chairs. I went into the other rooms. 
In the blue room I found a chair placed on the side table. 

Friday, December 24.—At midday, when all the domestic 
servants were at table, we found, in the Abbe’s room, the 
bed turned on its side and the table pushed under it. 
In the evening, at six o’clock, we opened the door of the 
same room, which was locked, and found the table placed 
on the middle of the bed. 

Saturday, December 25.—At noon, when all the servants 
were at table, knocks were heard in the Abbe’s room, 
though his door was locked. We inspected it and found 
an arm-chair placed on Maurice’s desk. On returning 
from Vespers we found in the Abbe’s room the couch 
upside down, the alarum on the glass case of the clock, 
and a chair on the table. In the evening, at 9 p.m., we 
heard the broom moving about the passage of the second 
floor. On going up we found that it had changed its 
place. 

Sunday, December 26.—Coming home from High Mass, 
we went with the Abbe up to his locked room. The 
cushions of the couch had disappeared. We found them 
placed on end, one beside the other, on the outer window¬ 
sill of his toilet cabinet. Before I put in a second window 
I had stopped up this window by a piece of wood se- 


CALVADOS CASTLE 


119 


curely nailed to the inner frame. That piece of wood 
had been torn out without the trace of any tool and placed 
beside the cushions. The window was closed again. 

1 p.m.: Twice we heard knocks in the house. Mme. 
de X. went on a round and found the Abbe’s room open, 
though he had locked it. A few minutes afterwards the 
drawing-room couch moved forward in two noisy rushes. 
Further noises upstairs, and another inspection. The 
Abbe’s door, which had been locked, had opened. 

5 p.m.: After vespers we found a candlestick on the 
top of the Abbe’s lamp, and the water-bottle placed on the 
base of the glass, which had been reversed. In his cabinet 
two shoes had been disposed fanwise on the window and 
others on the plate by the night-light. 

Sunday, December 26 to Monday, December 27.—In the 
evening, at nine o’clock, I went with Auguste to stay in 
the linen-room, leaving the door open. We heard a series 
of knocks like those of a stick walking and knocking on 
the floor of the passage facing us. We had lighted a light. 
Shortly afterwards Amelina heard steps descending to the 
kitchen, and the noise of pieces of wood being broken, 
though none were in the kitchen. Nobody was visible. 

Monday, December 27.—In the afternoon we all went 

to V-. The cook, who remained alone with a daily 

helper, told us that all was quiet. We went into the Abbe’s 
room, which had been locked, and found all his books, at 
least a hundred, strewn over the floor. Only three vol¬ 
umes remained up, each on its shelf. These were books 
of the Holy Scriptures. Devotional books had also been 
thrown on the floor from the mantelpiece, and the broom 
had been placed over them. 

This account is very lengthy, of course, but it is 
evidently very varied. I abridge it as much as is 
possible while preserving its intrinsic value. Here 
is the sequel: 

Night of Tuesday, December 28 to Wednesday, De¬ 
cember 29.—Three loud muffled blows on the second floor, 
followed immediately by numerous knocks along the sec- 



120 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


ond-floor passage. Then three series of three knocks each 
delivered sharply on the Abbe’s door, then two isolated 
knocks followed by the noise of ironware. Two more sets 
of three knocks, sharp and impatient, and finally a big 
blow on the door of the green room. Total duration, three 
minutes. 

Wednesday, December 29.—One of my music books is 
placed inside the piano. Mme. de X., hearing a noise 
in the Abbe’s room, goes up there, followed by the latter. 
She heard a movement in the room, and put out her right 
hand to open the latch of the door. Before she could 
touch it she saw the key turn quickly in the lock and 
detach itself, hitting her left hand. The Abbe witnessed 
this. The blow was so strong that the place was sensitive 
and visible two days afterwards. In the evening we found 
in the blue room a coverlet thrown into the middle of the 
room and a night-table taken into the cabinet and resting 
on a pillow. The ewer had changed places with a crystal 
bottle. 

Night of Wednesday, December 29, to Thursday, De¬ 
cember 30.—At 12.30 a.m. we were suddenly awakened 
by four thunderous blows on the door of Mme. de X.’s 
room. To acquire some idea of their violence, one must 
imagine a wall collapsing, or a horse or four cannon-balls 
thrown against a door. It would be no exaggeration. 
The noise suddenly changed over to the other end of the 
passage and a violent blow was heard on the door of the 
green room. Several loud muffled knocks were heard up¬ 
stairs, which shook the house. They moved about, grow¬ 
ing in loudness. 

12.40 a.m.: Two noises of ironware at the end of the 
passage. A loud knock on the door of the green room. 

12.50 a.m.: A prolonged walking with great strides on 
the second floor. A witness counted thirty-two paces. 
Forty blows on the Abbe’s door, five on the green room, 
ten on the flooring, two on the door, and five muffled blows 
which made the walls and furniture tremble on every floor. 
Total duration, four minutes. 

Thursday, December 30.—After lunch, when all the 
servants were at table, we found in the Abbe’s room a 


CALVADOS CASTLE 


121 


footstool placed on my son’s desk and covered with an 
antimacassar. At 2 p.m. I went up with the Abbe to 
his room, and we found the arm-chair on the table. On 
its seat the antimacassar was spread out, and a lamp was 
placed on the antimacassar. A cross and some blest medals, 
which had been attached to the door, had disappeared. 

Night of Thursday, December 30.—At 12.40 a.m. three 
blows were struck slowly on the door of the green room; 
eight muffled blows upstairs, shaking the house. Three 
noisy blows on the first-floor landing. Many steps were 
heard along the whole second-floor passage, sometimes 
quick, sometimes slow. These steps were quite unlike hu¬ 
man steps. No animal could walk like that; it was more 
like a stick jumping on one of its ends. 

6 a.m.: More raps on the second floor, witnessed by 

the parish priest of Saint P-, who slept here. Some 

things happened in his room. He heard something like 
the noise of an animal with boards under its feet, com¬ 
ing to the room adjoining his own, climbing on to the side 
table, crossing over to his pillow, entering his bed and 
stopping at the level of his left elbow. The priest had a 
light and was wide awake, but saw nothing. At 6 a.m., 
having gone into the green room, he heard something like 
the noise of rubbed straw, first on the couch, then in the 
window corner, on the curtain rod, and finally on the bed. 
The priest said there was no straw or anything like it in 
the room. Martial, our farm-manager, slept with us that 
night. He was followed by noises heard under his feet in 
the gardener’s presence. 

New Year’s Eve, 1876.—At 12.40 we were all awak¬ 
ened by a series of terrible blows on the door of the green 
room. After these came others inside the room, and then 
a single blow, followed by quick running along passages 
and stairs. Nine strong blows inside the green room. 
Prolonged rappings in the second-floor passage, and finally 
four muffled blows. Total duration, seven minutes. 

Night of Saturday, January 1, to Sunday, January 2.— 
At 1.5 a.m. loud blows were struck on the door of the 
green room, and we all awoke. A stampede along the 
passage of the first floor and then of the second floor. 



122 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Afterwards we heard thirteen irregular knocks, in pairs, 
inside the green room. Then various steps coming from 
above. A violent blow fell on the door of the green room, 
and three more inside. Eight muffled blows seemed to 
come from the second floor. The taper beside me shook 
at each blow. 

6.30 a.m.: Several blows in the passage resembling 
those of the night. It is notable that for the last three 
mornings those who come downstairs from their rooms 
are followed step by step down to the ground floor by 
raps which stop and start with them. The parish curate 
has been followed in this way, but saw nothing. 

Monday, January 3.—In the evening I was alone in 
the drawing-room about 5.15 p.m. I had a light and 
heard six ^well-marked raps on the small table standing 
two yards away from me. I turned round, but saw 
nothing. 

Night of Monday, January 3, to Tuesday, January 4.— 
At 3 a.m. a dozen blows were struck in pairs on the door 
of Mme. de X’s room. The nearest window shook at every 
blow. There was a light in the room. We were wide 
awake and quite cool, but saw nothing. Five minutes 
afterwards we heard a stampede, something like a stick 
jumping on one of its ends, in the first-floor and then in 
the second-floor passage; then some dull and feeble knocks. 
Dr. L., who has slept here, heard the noise of the running 
in the passage, but nothing else. The parish priest of 

La B- slept in the red room, and heard during the 

greater part of the night a series of feeble but very ex¬ 
traordinary noises in his passage. He did not venture 
to go to bed. He is convinced that this can only be super¬ 
natural. 

Wednesday, January 5.—The Rev. Fr. H. L., a Pre- 
monstrant Canon, has been sent here by the Bishop to 
judge the facts and help us. About 5 p.m., a few moments 
before his arrival, Mme. de X. heard in the drawing-room 
with her son the sound of the door shaken violently and 
saw the handle turn quickly. Maurice was frightened, and 
Mme. de X. began to sing loudly to prevent him hearing 
it. 



CALVADOS CASTLE 


123 


Presence of the Rev. Fr. H. L .—From the moment the 
Rev. Father arrived a sudden and absolute calm set in. 
Nothing happened either by day or by night. On Janu¬ 
ary 15 he made a religious ceremony. From that day 
we heard some isolated and unusual noises in the night, 
but always from places too far away from Fr. H. L. for 
him to hear. He left us on Monday, the 17th, and his 
departure was immediately followed by a new set of phe¬ 
nomena as intense and serious as those which preceded 
his coming. 

Night of January 17 to 18.—At 11 p.m. there was a 
noise as of a body falling in the first-floor passage, fol¬ 
lowed by that of a rolling ball giving a violent blow on 
the door of the green room. Prolonged stampede on the 
second floor, followed by twenty dull knocks in the same 
place and eighteen inside the green room. At 11.35 p.m. 
there were five great blows on the door of the green room, 
and fifteen dull ones on the second-floor staircase, two 
kicks on the landing, and ten dull knocks on the second- 
floor staircase, making everything round us shake. 

Night of January 19 to 20.—At 11.15 p.m. we were 
wakened by a stampede upstairs, followed by fifteen vio¬ 
lent blows on the door of the green room and fifty-five 
more inside. Shortly afterwards five blows as with a car¬ 
penter’s mallet on the first-floor stairs. Prolonged stam¬ 
pede. Five dull blows, drumming inside the green room, 
three blows on the door of the room, twenty-seven on the 
window of my room, the last two of which made the win¬ 
dows of Mme. de X. shake. Duration, ten minutes. 

At 1.45 a.m. eleven blows in my room. 

M. de X., having left for a few days on a visit to 
his brother, requested his wife to take notes in his 
absence. Here are these notes: 

Night of January 20 to 21.—1.8 a.m.: Five ordinary 
raps, followed by nineteen blows in the passage; two on 
the door of the linen-room, followed by six more; nine 
on the door of the green room, and eleven on the second 
floor, followed by a number of rhythmic raps on the second 


124 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


floor. Duration, seven minutes. Twelve dull knocks on 
the second floor, and eight raps seeming to pass from door 
to door. 

1.25 a.m.: Everybody hears four loud cries like bellow- 
ings, outside but at the level of the window, then some¬ 
thing like strokes with a wand on the stairs. Shortly 
afterwards ten stronger blows, followed by drumming on 
the second floor. 

1.30 a.m.: Two heavy blows on the second floor, shak¬ 
ing mirrors and other objects in the rooms. 

2.5 a.m.: Numerous raps on the stairs, one on the door 
of the linen-room, several on the door of the green room, 
one of them a resounding one; five strong dull blows on 
the second floor, which shake all the furniture. Five 
feebler blows on the stairs, four on the second floor. Bel¬ 
lowing in the north outside the house at the level of the 
first-floor windows. 

5.45 a.m.: A blow sounds in the passage. Running is 
heard, then the door of the green room, which opens and 
shuts violently. It is locked and the handle is torn off. 
Finally a sort of ball seems to roll along the same passage 
and to deliver a blow near the top of the stairs. The same 
night Mme. de X. heard a voluminous body falling heavily 
from her table to the ground. She looked, but could see 
nothing. 

Night of January 21 to 22.—At 3 a.m. we are awakened 
by fifteen knocks on the second floor. 

Night of January 22 to 23.—At 3 a.m. we are awakened 
by a set of twenty dull blows on the second floor. 

The following notes are by M. de X.: 

Night of January ^3 to 24.—At 9 p.m. a stampede was 
heard in our passage, followed by a series of feebler raps. 
The night was calm. This morning at 6 a.m. and then 
at 7 a.m. we heard a series of raps also in our passage. 

To-day I leave for P-. My wife will note what takes 

place in my absence. 

January 25.—At 4.30 p.m. much noise upstairs. Madame 
goes up with Amelina and finds the beds of Auguste and 
Emile turned over, and, strangely enough, in an absolutely 



CALVADOS CASTLE 


125 


identical manner. After observing- this disorder, Madame 
goes to the red room; the door resists, being obstructed 
by a heavy arm-chair. She puts it back and continues her 
inspection. As she goes to my study a frame placed in¬ 
side against the door falls against her legs, and she finds 
everything in disorder—prints thrown on the ground, the 
arm-chair upside down and heaped with papers, maps, 
etc. 

5.10 p.m.: The Abbe was reading his breviary. Al¬ 
though for three days there had been beautiful weather, 
a mass of water fell through the chimney on to the fire, 
extinguishing it and scattering the ashes. The Abbe was 
blinded and had his face covered with ashes. 

Night of January 25 to 26.—At 12.20 a.m. two blows 
in the hall. At 1 a.m. twelve blows, followed by long 
drumming, then thirty rapid blows of a peculiar char¬ 
acter, or, rather, a shaking of the whole house. Beds all 
over the house shaken. Afterwards nine blows in suc¬ 
cession, five on the door of the green room, then a long 
stampede. The total duration was only five minutes. A 
minute afterwards the entire house was shaken from top 
to bottom. Then there were ten terrible blows on the 
door of the green room, a dozen cries outside, three bel- 
lowings, then furious shouts. A very loud drumming in 
the hall, apparently in rhythm. Fifty blows quite close 
to my room. Several knocks at the door of my son 
Maurice. 

1.30 a.m.: The house was shaken twenty times, seven 
blows on the door of the green room, followed by blows 
so rapid that they could not be counted; two on the door 
of the green room, twelve near Maurice’s room, thirteen 
which made everything tremble, then in succession five, 
ten, and eighteen blows, shaking walls and furniture. 
There was hardly time to note them down. Nine terrible 
blows on the door of the green room, a drumming inter¬ 
spersed with loud blows, seven which shake everything, 
one very resounding, then a series of ten blows in pairs. 
At this moment a sound was heard like a bull roaring, 
then other inhuman furious cries in the passage near my 
wife’s room, who got up and rang to waken all the serv- 


126 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


ants. When everybody was up and assembled in the 
Abbe’s room, we heard two bellowings and a shout. 

At 4.20 everybody went back to bed. Mme. de X. 
heard a rather loud blow on the organ in her room, two 
yards from her bed. It was followed by three more blows 
whose direction she could not make out. The noises were 
heard clearly on the farm. 

Night of January 26 to 27.—Two further witnesses: 

the parish priest of Saint M- came to pass the night, 

and Mile, de L. came for several days. 

At 12.15 a.m. everybody was awakened by a very vio- 
lent noise such as would be caused by a board falling on 
the floor of the first-floor passage. It was followed by a 
cry. At 12.45, a stampede and heavy blows. After a short 
pause they began again and seemed accompanied by the 
shifting of heavy boxes. Maurice's door was shaken. 
Finally there were four blows on the door of the green 
room. 

Night of January 28 to 29.—At 11.15 p.m., a piercing 
cry on the stairs, raucous and sharp. Seven blows in the 
green room; six very loud ones on the door of the room. 

At 11.45, nineteen very dull blows on one of the doors 
in the passage. 

At 12.55 a.m. we heard something like the voice of a 
man in the first-floor passage. It seemed to cry twice 
* ‘ Ha! Ha! ’ 9 Immediately there were ten resounding blows, 
shaking everything all round. One blow on the door of 
the green room. Then the sound of coughing in the first- 
floor passage. We rose quickly, saw nothing, and found 
at my wife’s door a large earthenware plate broken into 
ten pieces. 

We have had a Novena of Masses said at Lourdes. The 
Reverend Father has made the exorcisms and everything 
has stopped. (See below p. 128). 

I must admit that every worldly reader who has 
never heard of the phenomena of haunting might 
attribute the preceding descriptions to the brains 
of lunatics or persons under hallucination. Yet 
these facts are true. The idea of the supernatural 



CALVADOS CASTLE 


127 


is evidently dominant in this family and their sur¬ 
roundings. We have to appreciate these things in 
a purely scientific manner. Out of numerous at¬ 
testations collected by Dr. Dariex I shall quote some 
documents as complementary declarations, which 
will replace details suppressed in the preceding de¬ 
scriptions to avoid undue prolixity. 


A letter from the Abbe D., late tutor of the son of 
Madame de Xand now parish priest in 
Normandy, to M . Morice . 


I have been a witness of all the things which happened 

at the Castle of T-from October 12, 1875, to January 

30, 1876. I can testify that the things related in the pre¬ 
ceding MS. cannot be the work of a man. All these noises 
were not only heard by one person but by a large number 
of witnesses, and the blows were so loud that they could 
be heard at a distance of 500 yards. I shall not give a 
new account of the facts, because you know them. Oc¬ 
currences of this nature also took place in the older castle. 
During all these troubles M. de X. took every imaginable 
precaution. How could a man have got into my room 
and changed the places of all the objects without my see¬ 
ing him? How could he have got on the chimney-piece 
and poured water on my fire so as to cover me with ashes ? 
And this in the daytime, and at a time of drought? My 
pupil was a witness of the occurrence, and I can still see 
him running. How was it that M. de X.’s dog, a well- 
trained animal, showed no astonishment amidst the great¬ 
est noises? How explain the opening of a well-closed 
window before our eyes? The cries we heard were not 
the cries of human beings. Often the walls of the castle 
were so much shaken that I was afraid of the ceiling 
falling on my head. Where could we find a man who 
could do all that? I, for one, can only think of the 
Devil. 



128 HAUNTED HOUSES 

Letter from M. Morice to M. Dariex. 


January 12, 1893. 

Dear Doctor, 

M. de X., as we see by the last sentence of his MS., 
attributed the cessation of the phenomena to the ceremony 
of exorcism and to the prayers he had said after the cere¬ 
mony. When he wrote it— i.e., on January 29—M. de X. 
certainly had some reason; but circumstances soon disil¬ 
lusioned him. 

By itself, the ceremony of exorcism yielded no result 
at all. It was performed on January 14 or 15, and we 
know by the account given by M. de X. himself what 
happened from that date until January 29. We must ad¬ 
mit that after the prayers prescribed by the exorcising 
priest peace seemed to return at the end of January. But 
at the end of August and especially in September the 

castle of T-again became the scene of events as strange 

as those which we know already. 

I have applied to one of the witnesses who spent the 

whole year 1876 at the castle of T-as tutor to M. de 

X.’s son, and this is his answer: 

Letter from the Abbe M. to M. G. Morice. 


Jamuary 20, 1893. 

Sir, 

After the exorcisms a great calm set in. One al¬ 
most incredible thing took place, which gave us much hope 
for the future. Here it is: You have seen from the diary 
that medals of St. Benoit, indulgenced crosses, and Lourdes 
medals had been placed on all the doors. These medals 
and crosses amounted to a good-sized package. You have 
also seen that on the following night a tremendous noise 
occurred and that next day medals and crosses had dis¬ 
appeared so that nothing could be found, though they and 
the doors were very numerous. Now the exorcisms had 
ceased and were succeeded by several days of peace. You 
may imagine how agreeable these days were. But two 
or three days afterwards Madame was writing some lines 






CALVADOS CASTLE 


129 


on her knees by a little desk when suddenly an immense 
packet of medals and crosses fell in front of her on the 
desk. It might have been about 10.30 a.m. Whence came 
these medals? They were all the medals placed on the 
doors except those of Lourdes. 

The good priest of T-, to whom the story was told, 

and who, like myself, knew the sincerity and honesty of 
the castle people and wished to keep them in his parish, said 
to them: ‘ ‘ Have courage, the Devil surrenders his arms, 
everything is finished I may assure you. You will be left 
in peace.’* But to me the good man said: “I am still 
afraid, much afraid, because Lourdes has not come back.” 

Towards the end of August the small noises came back 
more frequently and clearly. One night several persons, 
including myself, heard quick and fairly loud knocks in 
the linen-room. They were just like those produced the 
previous year when the phenomena commenced. 

One Saturday night before the third Sunday in Septem¬ 
ber a great noise occurred in the drawing-room and con¬ 
tinued for a part of the night. In the morning, M. de X., 
who had the key of the drawing-room in his pocket, went 
down in some anxiety. He opened the door and found 
the couch and arm-chairs moved far from their places. 
All was arranged as for a council meeting, horseshoe- 
fashion, with the couch in the centre. 

Well, the Devil had held council and was about to begin 
again. M. de X. opened his harmonium and played for a 
long time. As he closed the instrument, some of the airs 
he had been playing were repeated in the opposite corner 
of the drawing-room for a considerable time. 

Some days afterwards M. de X. was away for three days. 
During that time Madame kept a lamp and two candles 
alight in her room. As she was particularly afraid of 
ghosts, she bolted the door of her toilet cabinet and said 
to herself, “Now I shall only have the entrance door to keep 
in view . 9 7 At midnight we all heard a terrible blow, which 
awakened us, and Madame heard something like the noise 
of a package of linen which had fallen into her room. At 
that moment the lamp and candles went out and Madame 
heard the click of the bolt being withdrawn. And it had 
been drawn . 


130 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


The next day Madame heard a note of a small organ in 
her room sound for some time. The next day after that I 
heard about 2.30 p.m. the same organ playing several airs. 
Madame and a lady friend were away. I expected M. de 
X. back, but he only came in at 6 p.m. I told him what 
had happened, and he said: ‘ ‘ I have the key of the organ 
in my pocket.” It was true, and the organ had been locked. 

Another time, in my own room, a cupboard heavily laden 
with books and linen rose 20 inches from the ground and 
remained up for some time. My young pupil pointed it 
out to me. I pressed on the cupboard, but it did not yield. 
It resumed its place of itself afterwards. It may have 
been 3 o ’clock in the afternoon. 

One evening the windows of my room opened several 
times. There was no wind. 

(Sg.) X 

(Parish Priest of B - ). 

There is only one thing to be added, viz., that the au¬ 
thors of the above letters are priests whose perfect good 
faith cannot be doubted for a moment. 

(Sg.) G. Morice. 

Here, to clinch the matter, is an extract from a 
letter of Mme. Le N. de V. to Dr. Dariex: 

The Castle came into the possession of M. de X., I be¬ 
lieve, by inheritance. The former owner is said to have 
died in final impenitence, and was supposed to revisit her 
castle. 

When the first noises occurred, M. de X. thought he 
had to do with living people wishing to frighten him 
sufficiently to make him abandon the castle, which would 
in such circumstances have been sold for a song with its 
surrounding land. He therefore instituted a close ex¬ 
amination and sounded the walls and cellars to find the 
forgotten passages by which one could enter. In spite of 
the most careful vigilance no origin of these noises could 
be found, and they increased in spite of all precautions. 

He bought two formidable watch dogs, which were re¬ 
leased every night, but to no purpose. 

One day the animals started barking in the direction of 


CALVADOS CASTLE 


131 


one of the thickets of the garden with such persistence 
that M. de X. thought the miscreants had hidden them¬ 
selves there. He armed himself and his servants, sur¬ 
rounded the thicket and released the dogs. They rushed 
in with fury, but hardly had they got in when their barks 
changed into plaintive whines, like those of dogs being 
chastised. They ran away with their tails between their 
legs and could not be prevailed upon to go back. The men 
then went in and searched in every direction, but found 
absolutely nothing. 

The Abbe’s room was always the place where the greatest 
devilries took place. He never went out without double- 
locking it and putting the key in his pocket. It made no 
difference. His window, carefully closed, was found open. 
His furniture had been moved and upset. The window 
was screwed up. It was opened all the same, and the 
screws were found on the floor. One day, as the Abbe 
descended, he heard in his room a noise so loud that he 
immediately went up again. His library was upset and 
his books thrown to the other end of the room, not pell- 
mell as out of a piece of furniture which fell, but in regular 
files, just as they had been on the shelves. 

The state of fear became so great that the Abbe and his 
pupil went to stay with the parish priest. 

Another thing: A friend or cousin, an officer, wanted to 
spend a night in the particularly haunted room where no¬ 
body slept as a rule. He had his revolver and was deter¬ 
mined to shoot at anyone who would disturb his sleep. He 
kept a light burning. He was awakened by the frou-frou 
of a silken robe. He felt that the coverlet over his feet was 
drawn away. He addressed the nocturnal visitor without 
eliciting a reply and lighted his candle, which went out 
again at once. Three times he lighted it, and three times 
it went out. And still the frou-frou and the interference 
with the coverlet continued. He decided to shoot at the 
point indicated by the displacement of the bedclothes as 
the probable position of the intruder and thought to hit 
that being point-blank. He fired without any result. Yet 
the balls had not been withdrawn from the cartridges, for 
they were found in the wall next morning. 


132 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Here is another supplementary letter: 

Letter from Fr . F. y Parish Priest, to M. Morice 

Monsieur le Docteur, 

I can testify that I heard the strange noises reported 
in the diary of M. de X. I have read that diary and find 
it perfectly accurate. 

I have no doubt concerning the nature of the occurrences 
at the castle of T-. To me they are diabolically super¬ 

natural. You might consult Rev. Fr. H., who is acting as 

parish priest of M-. He passed a fortnight or three 

weeks at the castle. He had been sent by the Bishop to 
make the (secret) exorcisms if he judged it appropriate. 

(Sg.) J. A. 

Parish Priest of S - D -. 

The letter of the Reverend Father has also been 
published. But, indeed, any further documents 
would be superfluous. The reality of these amazing 
phenomena is beyond doubt. 

As a consequence of this intolerable state of 
things, the despairing owner sold the castle, and 
went to live elsewhere. 

Dr. Dariex terminates this important account of 
the incomprehensible occurrences in the following 
lines: 

I have recently had a visit from Prince H. who will try, 
with M. Morice, to extend, if possible, this enquiry already 
so rich in documents and testimony from witnesses of un¬ 
doubted honesty and credibility. 

The castle of T-is by far the most remarkable case 

of haunting we have come across which rests upon such 
rigorous documents and testimony. 

We can cast no doubt upon these numerous observa¬ 
tions. They are very remarkable in many ways, and the 
good faith of those who report the phenomena is un¬ 
doubted. 


(Sg.) Xavier Dariex. 


CALVADOS CASTLE 


133 


This whole story is most extraordinary, no doubt. 
But its authenticity is as certain as that of the Ger¬ 
man war of 1914-1918, which, with its terrible 
crimes, was still more mad and stupid. It is one of 
the best-established cases within our knowledge, and 
on that account it is here given at the beginning of 
our treatise, with its principal details, and not sum¬ 
marised. I shall not stop to consider the matter of 
the ‘ 4 diabolically supernatural. , ’ That discussion 
must he reserved. Let us continue our investiga¬ 
tions without any preconceived ideas. Explanatory 
researches can only come logically when we have 
all the observations before us. 

Yet it seems to me that we cannot hut feel au¬ 
thorised to conclude from all this that there are in¬ 
visible beings . 

I shall now bring to the notice of my readers an¬ 
other typical case of a haunted house, which will 
give us quite as much personal instruction. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF LA CONSTANTINIE 
(CORREIZE) 

M Y learned and much-lamented friend, Albert 
de Rochas, administrator of the ficole 
Polytechnique, whose psychical researches 
are so universally appreciated, always spoke to me 
with special interest about the observations made on 
this property in the Departement of La Correze 
(district of Objat), and particularly about the 
special enquiry made by M. Maxwell, locum tenens 
of the Procurator-General, whose competence! in 
these questions is equally known to all. Colonel de 
Rochas published this enquiry in his book on the 
externalisation of motricity (Paris, 1896) in the 
following manner, accompanied by a plan of the 
house: 

La Constantinie is quite a considerable property. The 
dwelling-house, built on the slope of a hillock, is com¬ 
posed of structures in the form of a square. That portion 
of the house which contains the front doors is on a ground 
floor raised some steps above the ground. It contains a 
large kitchen comprising the whole width of the building. 
To the right of the kitchen are a drawing-room and a 
bedroom. 

On the left of the kitchen is a wing of the house, form¬ 
ing two sides of a square, and consisting of a ground floor 
and a granary with a window. The ground floor of this 
part of the house is higher than the floor of the kitchen 
and the two other rooms. 

There are four rooms in this wing: a large double-bedded 
room, lighted by two front windows; an ante-chamber or 
134 


LA CONSTANTINIE 


135 


passage; a second smaller room, “Mme. Faure’s room”; 
and a four-windowed room looking out on the yard sur¬ 
rounded by servants’ quarters and containing two beds. 

The personnel of La Constantinie comprised a certain 
number of farm servants, Mme. Faure, her mother-in-law, 
aged eighty-five, and a young servant of seventeen, Marie 
Pascarel. 

Mme. Faure is a well-educated woman of culture. She 
is intelligent and energetic, and directs the administration. 
She comes of an honourable family. 

Her aged mother-in-law appears to have preserved all 
her faculties, though heavily burdened by her age. 

The young Marie Pascarel is intelligent and self-con¬ 
fident, with easy manners, though no reproach can be di¬ 
rected against her respectability. Physically she is rather 
thin, and appears delicate. At the time of the occurrences 
described below she had not arrived at a state of puberty. 
She has a sleep-walking sister, and her family are con¬ 
sidered rather extraordinary people. 

The numerous servants of La Constantinie take their 
meals in the kitchen, on a solid wooden table 3 feet wide 
and 9 feet long. The kitchen contains an oven, an im¬ 
mense fireplace with a little bench on the left and two 
chairs on the right, and some cupboards and shelves. 

The phenomena started in the second fortnight of May, 
1895, with knocks apparently made on the wall separating 
the dining-room from the bedroom of the elder Mme. Faure. 
On May 21, about 9 a.m., Mme. Faure told her daughter- 
in-law that her bed seemed to strike the partition. Mme. 
Faure, jun., did not attach much importance to this re¬ 
mark, which she put down to a mistake. Next day at the 
same hour the sound came again in the same place. Mme. 
Faure, jun., heard it distinctly. On May 23 nothing re¬ 
markable occurred. On Friday morning, the 24th, the 
noise started afresh in the same room with greater force. 
The noise was as if the bed hit the partition. 

An hour afterwards Mme. Faure, jun., entered her 
room and found the quilt, the blankets, the sheets, and 
the pillow thrown on the floor. Other disorders occurred 
in the house. Three empty casks were displaced in the 


136 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


cellar. In another room the bed was disturbed, the bed¬ 
clothes being strewn on the floor; a statuette of the Virgin 
and a coffee-pot filled to the brim had been transported 
from the cupboard to the middle of the room. They were 
on the floor, besides a crucifix which had been taken down 
from the wall. 

These things appeared inexplicable to Mme. Faure and 
they frightened her. She asked her mother-in-law* to 
sleep with her during the night from Friday to Saturday, 
and Marie Pascarel slept in the same room. The night 
was, as usual, calm and undisturbed. 

On the Saturday morning three great blows were struck 
on the door of the attic. The stairs leading up to it are 
closed by a door opening on the hall. 

The Faure ladies and their servants immediately went to 
the room. The bed was in disorder and the coverings again 
on the floor. The coffee-pot was broken. On leaving this 
room they went to the kitchen, but they had barely got 
there when they heard “a frightful commotion.” They 
found three sugar-bowls, a dozen cups, photograph frames 
and engravings broken on the floor. The three women were 
very much frightened, for at the moment when all this 
damage was done in the room the farm servants were in 
the fields and nobody was in the house except the two 
ladies and their servant, and all together. They were con¬ 
vinced that supernatural things were happening. Visits 
from their neighbours reassured them a little, but soon the 
manifestations took place in the presence of the visitors, 
who also were frightened. 

Amelie Bayle (Mrs. Madrias), an intelligent and rea¬ 
sonable woman of thirty, went to the Faures* at 7.30 
a.m. to see the damage. In her presence the cover of a 
soup-dish standing in front of the fire was thrown violently 
into the middle of the kitchen. Mrs. Madrias was at that 
moment sitting in front of the fireplace, with her back 
to the fire. Mme. Faure, Marie Pascarel, and a young 
lad were in the room. Mme. Madrias was between the soup- 
dish and the others. 

This phenomenon scared her. She at once left the house 
with the two young servants. 


LA CONSTANTINIE 


137 


They returned at about 11.30 a.m. Marie Pascarel was 
busy in the kitchen picking up the broken crockery which 
littered the floor. For, according to the witnesses, pots, 
plates, glasses, and dishes were taken down from the shelves 
by invisible hands and thrown on the floor, where they 
broke. Mme. Madrias saw a wooden bottle jump from a 
shelf and crash at her feet. 

Disorders were found in the room where the Faure 
ladies slept. Mme. Faure’s bed was upset. A mirror was 
taken down. Papers from a shelf were strewn on the floor. 
Later one of the papers was opened and two drops of 
blood, still moist, were found on it. Five minutes after¬ 
wards Marie Pascarel returned to the room. She then 
found six drops of blood on the paper. 

A number of objects were broken that day, notably 
an iron saucepan. A plate was torn from the servant’s 
hands. 

From Sunday, May 26, to Wednesday, May 29, inclusive 
no phenomena took place. On Thursday, the 30th, they 
started afresh with increasing force. Saucepans hanging 
from pothooks in the kitchen chimney were violently 
thrown to the ground. About 6 p.m. old Mme. Faure saw 
her bed move along by itself in her room. The chair on 
which she was sitting was drawn back. She got up at once 
and the chair was upset. Marie Pascarel was with her in 
the room. About 7 or 8 p.m., at supper-time, pieces of wood 
in the kitchen fell of themselves on the Faure ladies. 

Everybody was so much frightened that the Faure ladies 
and Marie Pascarel went to stay with neighbours. 

On Friday, May 31, they sent for the Mayor of Objat, 
the syndic of bailiffs of the arrondissement of Brive, a 
ministerial officer of high respectability. M. Delmas wanted 
to make sure of what was happening and to find the cause 
of the occurrences. He hesitated to believe that material 
objects could be thrown and moved without apparent con¬ 
tact. He went into the kitchen and placed some plates 
on the table, where there was already a stove-brush. M. 
Delmas sat down in front of the fireplace, with Mme. Faure 
on his left. The young servant worked at her duties. 
Under the eyes of M. Delmas, the brush was violently 


138 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


thrown into the fireplace. The servant was at some dis¬ 
tance from the table where the brush had been lying. 

The ideas of the honourable Mayor of Objat underwent 
a complete modification. He had come with the conviction 
that the occurrences described were due to evil-doers. He 
found that the movements of objects under his eyes were 
spontaneous. His surprise gave way to uneasiness when 
he saw a pair of kitchen bellows which lay on a bench in 
the fireplace slide along the bench, avoid the projections 
due to the legs of the bench, and throw itself with a great 
clatter into the middle of the kitchen. 

He immediately had the house cleared. Just as she was 
leaving with the Mayor and the Faure ladies the young 
Marie Pascarel was hit on the back by a stick 16 inches 
long thrown with considerable force. 

Hardly had he returned to Objat when he was called 
back. Fire had broken out at La Constantinie. Marie 
Pascarel had observed that a thick smoke issued from Mme. 
Faure’s room. On entering the room it was found that it 
came out of the bed of Mme. Faure, jun. There were no 
flames and no brazier (sic). Mme. Faure even used this 
singular expression in her account of the episode: “The 
fire went back into the bed. ’’ A phenomenon of this kind 
had already been observed. Marie Pascarel and the elder 
of the two ladies had sometimes noticed a thick smoke which 
seemed to issue from the old lady’s skirts. 

Two days afterwards Marie Pascarel left the service of 
the Faure ladies without giving notice. They went home, 
and since then the peace of their house has not been 
troubled. 

These occurrences were told me by M. de N., an official 
of the Bank of Limoges, whose family possesses estates at 
Objat. I immediately asked one of my friends, M. B., a 

Justice of the Peace at D-, and a friend of the Mayor 

of Objat, to give me details of these events, which had been 
seized upon by the Press, “The Haunted House of Objat” 
constituting an attractive title. M. B.’s communications 
seemed to me sufficiently serious to justify a visit. I went 
to Objat with this magistrate, and interviewed Marie 
Pascarel, as well as her brother and guardian. 



LA CONSTANTINIE 


139 


Accompanied by the Mayor of Objat we went to Mme. 
Faure, who at first made some difficulty about receiving 
her former servant. 

I then explained that the object of my researches was 
purely scientific; that the phenomena she had observed in¬ 
terested certain savants with whom I had the honour of 
communicating, and that the precision and number of testi¬ 
monies confirming the observations made it desirable to 
have a detailed account of the events of which her house 
had been the scene to submit to the scrutiny of these savants. 
With a very good grace Mme. Faure consented to allow 
me to collect all the particulars on the spot, and to make 
any useful experiments. I went over the house, gathered 
all the details, and made a rough plan of the rooms. The 
results have been given above. 

I have had to confine myself to the principal facts, for 
on several days movements of objects, without apparent 
contact, were produced at La Constantinie almost every 
moment. Even the house cat was one day thrown at the 
elder Mme. Faure. On another occasion, the latter was 
slightly injured in the head by an iron hook of the sauce¬ 
pan rack. 

Does the strangeness of the phenomena narrated to me 
by the inhabitants of La Constantinie and their neighbours 
suffice for rejecting them? Persons who contest a priori 
the possibility of these spontaneous movements of material 
objects will, of course, not be convinced. But it may be 
questioned whether it is prudent thus to deny on principle 
every inexplicable thing. Such a negation is not, in my 
opinion, in conformity with the true scientific spirit. We 
know the natural forces we have learnt to utilise, but only 
very imperfectly. Can we maintain that other quite un¬ 
known forces do not exist? I am inclined to think that 
the contrary is more certain, and that the future will re¬ 
veal many things. Nature is infinite and we hardly know it. 

From this point of view, the study of the phenomena of 
La Constantinie presents a considerable interest. It has 
seemed useful to me to describe them to you. It is not less 
useful to discuss their reality. This discussion can be re¬ 
duced to the examination of two hypotheses: Was there 


140 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


fraud? And was there much error of observation among 
the witnesses? The second hypothesis is inadmissible. 
The material proofs are irrefutable. Numerous movable 
objects were broken under the very eyes of witnesses. The 
noise of the fall of these objects, the existence of fragments, 
gathered at the places where the objects were seen to break, 
give clear objective confirmations of the testimony. These 
circumstances also rule out the possibility of hallucination. 

There remains the hypothesis of fraud. It naturally 
occurs to one’s mind. It may explain some of the phe¬ 
nomena, but it would seem to require many improbable 
accessory hypotheses to explain all the facts collected. 

If a fraud was committed, by whom was it done ? Only 
three persons can be suspected—the Faure ladies and their 
servant, Marie Pascarel. Most of the phenomena took 
place in the presence of those three persons. 

The movement of objects without contact was observed 
in many cases when the other inhabitants of La Constantinie 
were absent, and could not, therefore, occasion them. 
Among these cases are the phenomena observed by the 
Mayor of Objat, and the raps, damages and disorder of 
the beds in the various rooms of the house when the Faure 
ladies and their servant were alone. 

The Faure ladies can also be eliminated. Without even 
considering their respectability, the manifest terror in 
which they lived, and the damage which they suffered, it 
should weigh with us that no link between them and the 
phenomena was ever discovered. The latter ceased com¬ 
pletely with the departure of Marie Pascarel; on the other 
hand, certain things occurred when that girl was alone 
with one or other of the Faure ladies. Finally, the state 
of physical infirmity of the elder of the Faure ladies pre¬ 
cludes her participation in any fraud. 

On the other hand, a connection was observed between 
the presence of Marie Pascarel and the movement of ob¬ 
jects without apparent contact. She was always present 
when the phenomena occurred. Some took place when she 
was alone, such as the shifting of the casks in the cellar 
and the fire in the bed. It was she who was the apparent 
cause of these strange happenings. She was suspected by 


LA CONSTANTINIE 


141 


everybody. Her departure brought about their cessation. 

We cannot, therefore, attribute fraud to anyone except 
Marie Pascarel. Yet even in her case the hypothesis is 
difficult to admit. Some circumstances seem to make it 
possible; others tend to eliminate it. The former can be 
briefly summarised as follows: 

She was always at La Constantinie when an inexplicable 
phenomenon occurred. Her character had its faults. She 
was not always polite to Mme. Faure. She was intelligent 
and bold, and meddled in what did not concern her. But 
her honesty was never doubted. It was she who announced 
the fire. 

If the occurrences were due to fraud, we may conclude 
that it was she who devised them and who cleverly deceived 
all the witnesses. Yet the circumstances which tend to ex¬ 
clude fraud are more numerous and weighty than the op¬ 
posite ones: 

(1) Absence of an intelligible motive. Marie Pascarel 
was in a good situation, and given the country customs in 
Limousin, she could not easily find another place at that 
time of the year. It was not, therefore, in her interest to 
expose herself to a dismissal, or to leave her employment 
of her own accord. We should remember that at her age, 
and in her station, she could have no occupation but that 
of a servant. Her business was to get a job. 

These considerations render the hypothesis of a fraud 
inspired by ill-will very improbable. Yet I admit it is 
not impossible. But then we should have to attribute to 
Marie Pascarel a singular audacity. That young girl must, 
then, have cleverly broken the crockery of her mistresses 
and upset everything to harm and frighten them. Yet 
nothing reveals such evil intention in her, though it must 
have been powerful in order to prevail upon Marie Pas¬ 
carel to expose herself to all the perils of a discovery. On 
the other hand, the fire becomes inexplicable on that motive. 
If she wished to occasion damage, why give the alarm? 
Indeed, we must credit this young girl with a great deal of 
daring to believe that she set fire to Mme. Faure’s bed at a 
moment when everybody’s attention was excited and her 
direct or indirect participation began to be suspected. 


142 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


We must add that the phenomena only occurred in full 
daylight. A person animated by evil intentions, or simply 
by an intention of mystification, would surely have chosen 
the night for the action. She would have found more 
security, and would have more surely frightened her 
victims, for night and darkness predispose to fear and 
credulity. On the contrary, if Marie Pascarel tricked, she 
chose broad daylight and the presence of many witnesses 
to carry out her projects of mystification. 

Was she impelled by a desire for mystification? Or did 
she wish to convey the impression that she had a super¬ 
natural power? I think not. 

In the former case, her mystifications resulted immedi¬ 
ately in a considerable increase of work for her, for she 
had to pick up the fragments and dispose of them. She 
had to make the beds afresh and repair the disorder in the 
rooms. She exposed herself to being found out and dis¬ 
missed under conditions which would have damaged her 
reputation and rendered her employment by others 
difficult. 

In the other case, she would have passed for a witch. It 
suffices to know the opinion of the peasants of Limousin 
concerning witches to realise how undesirable such a reputa¬ 
tion would be for a girl. The unfortunate Marie Pascarel 
did, in fact, not escape this danger, and I felt the unde¬ 
served repulsion which she inspired. 

(2) Necessity for an unusual cleverness. 

This circumstance is indispensable to make fraud possi¬ 
ble. For during several days, at any moment, movements 
of objects without apparent contact were produced in the 
presence of numerous witnesses. A gross fraud would have 
been detected at once, especially when some witnesses, such 
as the Mayor, were on the look-out for evil intentions. 

The testimony of this magistrate, that of the Faure 
ladies, of Mme. Madrias, and of the man-servant, are con¬ 
clusive. The Mayor placed some objects on the table. A 
stove-brush lay beside them. The brush was forcibly 
thrown into the fireplace. Could Marie Pascarel have 
thrown it herself when she was under supervision? Could 
she have thrown the glass which stood on a shelf of the 


LA CONSTANTINIE 


143 


cupboard she was opening while the Mayor watched her 
movements? How could she throw the bellows which left 
the fireplace to alight in the middle of the kitchen? 

In this last case the Mayor was between her and the 
bellows, while she was several yards away. Could she 
have pulled it with a string ? The string would have been 
seen. How could the girl have arranged all those strings 
without anyone noticing them? Should we not have to 
assume the complicity of all the respectable people who 
recounted their impressions? It is very unlikely that a 
young peasant girl of sixteen should, in broad daylight, in 
a kitchen frequented by a large staff, in the presence of 
several persons, have accomplished conjuring tricks which 
an expert could not perform thrice without having his 
procedure discovered. 

An examination of the circumstances in which the 
phenomena reported by Mme. Madrias occurred confirms 
this view. 

At the general supper in the kitchen on May 30 a series 
of extraordinary phenomena occurred. Marie Pascarel 
held in her hand a plate of soup. At the moment when 
she started to eat the plate was roughly torn out of her 
hands and thrown into the middle of the kitchen. Every¬ 
thing on the heavy table round which the Faure ladies and 
their servants were seated was upset. A basket full of 
wooden logs placed in the chimney corner was overturned. 
The logs of wood flew about the room, fell on the Faure 
ladies and their servants, and slightly hurt M. Bosche on 
the head. Can this have been a “ trick”? 

Without going into further detail, the witnesses must 
have really seen what they narrate, fraud must be ruled 
out, and, if we admit human testimony at all, we must take 
the phenomena at La Constantinie as having actually oc¬ 
curred. The declarations of witnesses so numerous, so 
truthful, so respectable for the most part, would certainly 
convince in a matter of capital importance a jury and a 
court of assize. 

Such is the report of the famous magistrate Max¬ 
well. This haunted house certainly differs from that 


144 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


of Calvados. But it is not the less interesting: Baps 
without apparent cause, overturning of beds and fur¬ 
niture, shifting of objects, movements without con¬ 
tact, breaking of objects, drops of blood, fire; but 
no sound of footsteps or wailing, no symptoms 
which indicated acts of the dead. Among all the 
known physical forces we are tempted to think of 
electricity in its protean forms. But the blood 1 - 
stains? The observations are certain, but the cause 
is undecipherable for the narrator, M. Maxwell, for 
the special student, M. de Bochas, and for me, an¬ 
other student, who know nothing. 

I have sufficient experience of these phenomena to 
deny with certainty that the servant was the respon¬ 
sible agent. The ancient adage, Cum hoc, ergo 
propter hoc, is here, as elsewhere, inapplicable. 

A deduction to make, on the other hand, from the 
Calvados case, as well as the Correze case of haunt¬ 
ing is that invisible beings exist. 

To assume the unconscious duplication of per¬ 
sonality of the servant in a waking state, endowed 
with fantastic faculties, is more daring than to ad¬ 
mit the existence of invisible beings. We must ex¬ 
plain these intelligent displacements of objects 
(p. 139), the crucifix taken down, the mirror un¬ 
hooked, the stove-brush thrown under the observant 
eyes of the Mayor—all these exercises which have 
no connection with the effects of somnambulism. 

All these observations are considerable by their 
number alone. I know well that it is not because 
Victor Hugo wrote 127,934 verses that he is a great 
poet. But quantity does not in itself depreciate 
quality. 


CHAPTER V 

HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT AND MODERN 

A disturbed house in Auvergne—A psychic incident in 
Monaco—Physical phenomena and deaths—Death and 
clocks. 

I T is not in one volume that the authentic ex¬ 
amples of haunted houses could be collected. 
It is rather in ten or twenty volumes. Without 
counting the innumerable direct narratives I have 
received for so many years from witnesses who have 
kindly written to me, the observations published by 
competent authors are often so characteristic that I 
am tempted to bring them before my readers in the 
first instance for their independent instruction. 
And they go back very far. 

One of the most ancient cases is that of Pausanias, 
general of the Lacedaemonians at Plataea, con¬ 
demned to die of hunger in the temple of Minerva, 
477 b. c., whose spirit, they say, manifested itself for 
a long time afterwards by cries and terrible noises. 
Be they legends or memories, ancient history is full 
of these stories of posthumous manifestations. 

In a work read even now by all educated people, 
Pliny the Younger reports the almost classical 
episode of the Athenian ghost, where the philosopher 
Athenodorus had bought a house very cheaply on 
account of haunting. During the first night, while he 
was reading and writing as usual, he suddenly heard 
what seemed to be the dragging of chains on the 
floor. On looking up he saw an old man of sorrow¬ 
ful appearance, loaded with irons, who came nearer, 
beckoned him to follow him, and led him to a place 

145 


146 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


in the yard, where he disappeared. The philosopher 
recounted the story to the judges, and digging re¬ 
vealed a chained skeleton. Honourable burial was 
given to it, and all the phenomena ceased. 1 

It is by the hundred that I could bring before my 
readers these stories reported for thousands of 
years from all sorts of sources, stories which we 
must not indeed take literally, but the majority of 
which cannot be attributed to invention; among 
others, the story told by Pliny, who has always 2 been 
considered worthy of credence. Prom the most an¬ 
cient times these descriptions have continuously fol¬ 
lowed each other. The more recent ones are, as a rule, 
finished with more documentary evidence. These are 
in considerable number, and we have almost a super¬ 
fluity of choice, even while limiting ourselves to 
observations made by a large number of witnesses. 

M. Georges de Dubor, the learned author of the 
Mysteres de I’Hypnose, (1920), gives the following 
description of a haunted house, obtained from ab¬ 
solutely intelligent and respectable people, whose 
truthfulness is above suspicion. The head of the 
family, M. Boussoulade, holds an important appoint¬ 
ment at the Ministry of Finance. He is a serious 
and settled person, esteemed by everybody. Here 
are the facts according to a statement written by 
Mme. Boussoulade, and certified as correct by the 
other members of the family, who witnessed the 
phenomena: 3 

On July 1, 1914, I left Paris for the village of Yodable, 
in Auvergne, with one of my cousins, her children, and my 
two little girls aged nine and twelve respectively. We 

1 Letters of Pliny the Younger , Book VII., Letter 27, to Sura. 
Athenodorus, a stoical philosopher, born at Tarsus, was tutor to 
Augustus. 

2 I omit the amusing diatribes of Lucian of Samosata. 

3 See also the Revue M6tapsychique of November, 1921, for supple¬ 
mentary details. 



HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 147 

had rented a property in a beautiful situation, dominating 
a rich valley. The house, built upon the remains of a 
feudal castle, had a ground floor with thick walls and 
solidly built vaults. Inhabited for a long time by the same 
family, it was full of old furniture and portraits. It was 
arranged as follows: ground floor—library, drawing-room, 
and dining-room; first floor—an ante-room, furnished and 
hung with portraits, three bedrooms, one of them papered 
red, with a much larger one adjoining it, and a smaller one 
with a single mahogany bed, Empire style; second floor— 
my two rooms and two others occupied by servants. 

The month of July passed by undisturbed. August 
brought the anxieties of the war, and on the 1st of Septem¬ 
ber my sister arrived from threatened Paris, accompanied 
by her son aged nineteen, a tall and strong lad. 

They had barely recovered from the fatigue of their 
long and comfortless journey when the phenomena com¬ 
menced which are the subject of this letter. On September 
7, about 8.30 p.m., as we were assembled in the red room 
of the first floor, inhabited by my sister, we heard the bell 
ring in the ante-room. Nobody had pulled the cord of that 
bell, which was under our eyes. 

On September 8 more ringing, repeated several times at 
the same hour. Then a portrait fell on my nephew’s head 
in the ante-room. We put the nail and the picture back in 
their places. 

Next morning, September 9, a sword from a panoply fixed 
in the library wall on the ground floor was found on the 
floor without its scabbard, while the nails which held it on 
the wall were intact. In the evening the bell on the first 
floor started ringing again and the picture fell at the same 
hour as before. 

Nothing on the 10th. On the 11th, frequent ringing be¬ 
tween 9 and 9.30. Much annoyed we put paper into the 
bell. The paper fell out and the ringing recommenced. I 
then asked my nephew to pull down the intolerable bell. 
He did so with some difficulty. A moment afterwards one 
of the portraits in the ante-room was violently agitated and 
pendulated to and fro. 

On the 12th the pictures in the dining-room were found 


148 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


awry. At 7 p.m. a copper flower-pot placed on a staircase 
window-sill came downstairs on its base step by step and 
only stopped on the ground floor. Put back in its place, 
it descended again. 

On the 13th, as I was going to enter my room on the 
second floor, about 7 p.m., I found to my consternation that 
the door was double-locked from within, the key being in¬ 
side. It was the same with the door of the passage ad¬ 
mitting to the second room. I could therefore not get in. 
The locks were afterwards picked and the rooms opened. 

That same evening, as we were all in the library with 
two visitors, we saw a portrait detach itself from the wall 
and fall into the middle of the room. The nail remained 
in the wall and the cord was unbroken. We went up to 
see our rooms. Behind us a trunk fell from the top of a 
chest and a door was locked. The key, which had been 
hidden by my sister in a drawer only known to herself, had 
disappeared. 

On the 14th a big fire was spontaneously lighted in the 
fireplace of the drawing-room. A picture in the ante-room 
was thrown over the head of the chambermaid. Its nail 
was in the wall and its cord intact. As we sat down to 
table in the evening we saw the cord of the dining-room 
bell move downwards and the bell started ringing. In the 
library, under our eyes, a picture fell, torn down from the 
wall with the nails which held it. 

On the morning of the 15th my cousin was locked into her 
room as in a prison. The keys of the door had disappeared 
and we looked for them in vain. The locksmith came and 
the keys so laboriously sought were found in a very obvious 
place. From this day on, our keys always remain in our 
possession and we lock our rooms on going away to avoid 
any new tricks, and yet every evening my cousin, my sister, 
and my nephew find in their beds on retiring some object 
—turnips, pincers, plates, thistles, and even a bust of the 
former owner of the house. 

On the 16th the copper flower-pot went up to the first 
floor. The sword fell to the ground, outside its scabbard. 

On the 17th a plate hidden in my nephew’s bed and then 
placed on a piece of furniture was violently thrown on the 


HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 149 

ground. From another piece of furniture opposite a can¬ 
dlestick was thrown. 

On the 19th I left with my children for Bordeaux, 
where my husband was, glad to leave that inhospitable 
house; but my departure did not stop the course of those 
pleasantries, which continued in my absence. 

On the 20th my nephew, when about to go to sleep, felt 
himself lifted with his heavy mahogany bed almost verti¬ 
cally upwards by an invisible force. My sister and cousin, 
who came on hearing him shout, witnessed the occurrence. 

In the face of these phenomena, as strange as they were 
troublesome, our departure for Paris was decided upon. 
Then the phenomena multiplied. The bust of the former 
owner was found in the bed of the red room, its head on the 
pillow and the bedclothes tucked in round his chin. After¬ 
wards it was found in my nephew’s bed. A copper flower¬ 
pot, placed in the ante-room, made a prodigious bound and 
fell back in the middle of the stairs. Replaced on the win¬ 
dow-sill it went down the steps as it did before, under 
the eyes of those present. An earthenware pot hounded 
across the stable-yard and broke in pieces on the dining¬ 
room table, passing through the open window. 

On the 24th, the day of departure, the fallen pictures 
were replaced. They fell again. The furniture of the 
drawing-room, where nothing had happened yet, was up¬ 
set. It was picked up, but fell again. The same thing 
happened in the second-floor room. The case of the clock 
on the mantlepiece opened of its own accord. None of the 
chairs remained standing. Sitting round the dining-room 
table for the last meal, they all saw the table shake, rise 
up, and move in the direction of my sister. 

On returning to Paris my sister, cousin, and nephew 
recovered the peace which I myself enjoyed at Bordeaux, 
and we forgot the fantastic events which I had witnessed. 

In the course of December I returned to Paris with my 
husband and my children. On the 17th of that month we 
were assembled at my cousin’s for a family dinner on the 
eve of my nephew’s departure for the army. We were 
hardly seated round the table when it began to move and 
rise up. The wood gave continual raps. We questioned 


150 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


the table—one rap, yes; two raps, no—but the replies 
were ridiculous and incoherent. We finished our meal 
with difficulty. During the evening three electric bells 
sounded of their own accord. 

Next morning there was another meetihg in my house for 
lunch. The table simply bounded as soon as we sat down, 
and was even more agitated than the night before, so that 
it required all our forces to keep it down. In the drawing¬ 
room, after the meal, a bronze flower-pot left its support 
under our eyes and threw itself three times into the middle 
of the room. An arm-chair was also thrown on the ground 
three times. On leaving the guests had to look a long time 
for their hats, which were eventually found on the beds or 
behind the furniture. 

My cousin left, and peace reigned once more. On her re¬ 
turn an hour afterwards the table moved again and ob¬ 
jects were thrown across the room. Everything ceased on 
her departure. 

Under these circumstances my nephew left for the army 
(he was killed in May, 1915), and since then we have had 
no phenomena of the kind to record. 

This narrative of Mme. Boussoulade shows that 
the departure of the young man brought about the 
cessation of the phenomena. Yet they only took 
place in the assembled family, as if other forces be* 
side his were necessary to produce them. 

The narrative is confirmed by her husband and 
other witnesses. 

All these physical actions appear to us incoherent 
and purposeless. Yet we have here real facts inter¬ 
esting to verify a study. 

Two incidents strike us in this very remark¬ 
able story: the bell sounding without assignable 
cause and the strange and repeated fall of the pic¬ 
ture. I know several dozen falls of pictures with¬ 
out a known cause, which coincided with deaths, and 
more than a hundred equally unexplained bell-ring¬ 
ings. We shall return to this later. 


HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 151 

It is not uncommon for a portrait to fall at the 
hour of death of the person it represents. We have 
in vol. iii of Death and Its Mystery the story by 
Alexandre Dumas of the fall of a fine pastel coin¬ 
ciding with a death, and also of a painting in similar 
circumstances, etc. Quite recently an analogous in¬ 
cident occurred close to myself. In the course of 
the winter 1920-21, while I was at Monte Carlo, I 
heard that a similar incident had occurred at the 
Bishopry of Monaco. I was able to institute a per¬ 
sonal enquiry on the spot, and to gather all the de¬ 
tails from the witnesses themselves, who kindly 
communicated them to me. Here is this curious 
history: 

Monsignor Beguinot, Bishop of Nimes, died on February 
3, 1921, at 6 a.m. He had been in close friendship with 
Mgr. de Curel, Bishop of Monaco, who died on June 5, 
1915, and had given him his portrait as a mark of friend¬ 
ship. It was a beautiful framed engraving, which the 
Bishop of Monaco had placed in the great hall of the 
Bishopry, facing his own portrait. After the decease of 
M. de Curel, the Bishopry of Monaco was occupied by Mgr. 
Vie (August 16, 1916, to July 10, 1918). On February 3, 
1921, the episcopal palace was vacant and was in charge 
of Canon Perruchot, then alone at the Bishopry. In pass¬ 
ing through the great hall on the morning of that day, he 
saw the portrait on the ground, with the glass broken, and 
immediately had the impression that this inexplicable fall 
(the cord and nail had nothing to do with it) might cor¬ 
respond to a misfortune. The same day, M. PAbbe Foc- 
cart, almoner of the hospital, passing by, gathered up the 
fragments of the frame, put the picture together and put 
it back in its place. 

(The new Bishop of Monaco has since removed it, and 
substituted his own.) 

It was learnt on the same day that the Bishop of Nimes 
had died that day. 

Mgr. Beguinot had often come to see his friend Mgr. de 


152 HAUNTED HOUSES 

Curel, being a close friend, and had even made him his 
general legatee. 

These incidents were personally vouched for by 
Mgr. Perruchot and the Abbe Foccart, for which I 
thank them. (This Abbe is the brother of the 
learned traveller, to whom we owe a picturesque ac¬ 
count of the Flammarion Lake in Guadeloupe.) 

We may ask how the soul at the moment of death 
can produce physical effects of this kind. Whatever 
be the explanation we know that there was a sym¬ 
pathetic link between the two bishoprics. The dis¬ 
tance between Nimes and Monaco is 145 miles, but 
we know that in telepathy space does not count. 
The spirit of the deceased could be in Monaco just 
as well as Nimes. 

I may remark in passing that my collection of 
documents contains several correspondences of the 
same kind. The following case of a frame reversed 
after a death was communicated to me textually as 
follows: 


M£rignac (Gironde), 

November 10, 1922. 

Honoured Master, 

I take the liberty of announcing to you a strange 
occurrence which unexpectedly took place at my house on 
October 5. 

Mme. Lafargue, a healing medium, of the Rue de Les- 
cure, Bordeaux, died on 14th of October, at eleven p.m. 
Next morning, between nine and ten, one of her people 
came to tell us of her death. My wife received the messen¬ 
ger and took her for a few minutes into our room, where 
she showed her at a distance the full-length portrait of our 
only son, who died for France in September, 1918. Then 
she saw her out, after shutting the door of the room. 

I ought to tell you that to the right and left of that 
portrait there are, also in frames on the wall, the various 
academic honours of our son, his medical doctor’s diploma 


HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 153 

on one side and on the other his Baccalaureate and his P. 
C. N. 

Each of the frames is fixed on the wall by a double brass 
wire attached to a hook and nail. 

A few minutes after the departure of the visitor my 
wife returned to her room, to which nobody had access dur¬ 
ing her short absence. On entering the room she experi¬ 
enced an ardent wish to gaze once more upon the image of 
our beloved son. To her extreme surprise she found that 
the frame of the doctorate diploma was turned right round 
to the wall. I may say that on making the experiment that 
this rotation could only be accomplished by slightly rais¬ 
ing the metallic suspension under the nail. Without this 
precaution the frame could only do a half-turn, which 
would put it at right angles to the wall. Any force would 
tear out the nail. 

This, honoured Master, is the strange fact of which I 
wish to tell you. You will, no doubt, draw a conclusion 
consistent with your humanitarian aim of discovering the 
manifold faculties of the human soul. 

Yours, etc., 

(Sg.) F. Monlinet 

(Retired Primary Teacher , Officier de VInstruction 
Pullique.) 

P.S.—The late Mme. Lafargue, knowing the great af¬ 
fliction of my wife, sincerely deplored her incredulity as 
regards human survival. Could she, ten or eleven hours 
after her death, have wished to give her a tangible proof 
by such a manifestation ? I am rather disposed to think so. 

I know a number of happenings quite as suggestive (and 
as authentic) as that which I have just told. 

These phenomena, we see, are found in all coun¬ 
tries and in every stratum of society. Of course, 
we do not understand them. They are usually re¬ 
garded as coincidences, and despised as such, but 
they deserve better treatment. 

That physical effects, like falls of pictures, the 
breaking of portraits, the stopping or starting of 
clocks, are produced in correspondence with cer- 


154 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


tain deaths has been observed too often not to be 
admitted, and we may eliminate the idea of ac¬ 
cidental coincidence. Let us follow the precept of 
Laplace (see p. 44). 

On p. 351 of my book Autour de la Mort I wrote 
that in 1913, at the hour of death of an old relative, 
her watch, which hung in her room, stopped, that 
nobody could get it to go, and that it started again 
several years afterwards on the day her son died. 

Pasteur Luc Mathey, of the Bernese Jura, told me 
of the stoppage of an alarm clock at the moment of 
a death, which he had specially verified (Letter 
4,833, February 21, 1922). We appeal to chance, 
but these examples are rather frequent, and clocks 
do not generally stop in the middle of their going. 

M. Duquesne, of Orsay, related to me on June 25, 
1922, an incident of the stopping of a clock on the 
death of a person whom he had placed in the 
Salpetriere, and who had made him a present of 
this clock. 

M. Lucien Jacquin, in Paris, told me (letter dated 
October 1, 1922) that on the day of the death of his 
grandfather, his grandfather’s clock had stopped, 
to the great astonishment of the whole family. 

I think that these singular manifestations are not 
so rare as one imagines. 

Having recently conversed on this subject with 
my friend, the celebrated historian, Arthur Levy, 
author of Napoleon Intime , of Napoleon et la Paix, 
and of other valued historical works, I received the 
following letter from him dated June 11, 1923: 

My Dear Old Friend, 

Here is a little contribution to your enquiry on 
psychic phenomena, which awakens in the whole world 
some more or less long-forgotten memories. My narrative 
relates to facts which I cannot now date exactly, but they 
certainly fell between 1856 and 1860. 


HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 155 

It was in my parents’ house at Spinal. There was a 
clock on the mantelpiece, under a shade. The whole family 
was at table, under the light of a hanging lamp. My father 
and mother were playing bezique. The children were doing 
their school tasks. Only the tick-tock of the clock broke 
the silence which reigned in the semi-darkness of the room. 
One evening, about nine o’clock, a short rolling noise was 
heard in the clock, and all eyes w T ent up. “There,” said 
my father, “the clock is going queer.” But nothing more 
happened, and the clock went on. We decided to send for 
the clockmaker in the morning. He found nothing wrong 
and the mechanism was quite in order. He found no ex¬ 
planation of the strange noise. 

Next day—it was not a question of telegraphing in those 
days—we heard of the death of my maternal grandfather 
who had died on that evening, perhaps at the very hour 
when that sinister rolling was heard. A curious coincidence 
which was talked about, but without attaching much im¬ 
portance to it. 

Next winter, however, there was a repetition of the same 
noise. My parents were startled. Would there be another 
death? There was. An uncle of mine died at the time 
when the clock made the noise. That clock was thence¬ 
forward an object of anxiety in the family. At the least 
indistinct murmur frightened eyes turned to the clock. 

These, my dear old friend, are the things observed in a 
milieu where psychic problems received scant attention. 
A numerous family was concerned with more material 
speculations. 

I guarantee the absolute accuracy of what I have told. 
My memory is very clear. And I must ask you to believe 
that I should consider it a sacrilege to associate the memory 
of my parents with a story concerning which there was 
the slightest uncertainty. 

(Sg.) Arthur L£vy. 

Not only do clocks stop at the moment of a death, 
but others, stopped for a long time, set themselves 
going. Here is, for instance, a rusty clock, which be¬ 
gan to go without anyone touching it. The follow- 


156 HAUNTED HOUSES 

ing letter was sent to me from Paris on January 5, 
1923: 

Dear Master, 

Being a student in Paris, I have the honour to solicit 
your kind judgment on an occurrence which interests me 
profoundly. 

On December 19 last I had the great sorrow of losing 
my mother at the age of forty-nine. 

In the night which followed her death, while there were 
three of us in a room adjoining the death chamber, an old 
clock which had been silent for many years started going 
and its striking mechanism struck in the clearest notes the 
hour of midnight, though the hands were at rest on 11.20. 

What mysterious force set that clock in motion with its 
rusty mechanism ? 

To you, dear Master, who have analysed the human soul, 
I put this disturbing question, assuring you of my grati¬ 
tude for the honour of an answer. 

(Sg.) E. Imbert. 

23, Rtje Saint-Andr£-des-Arts, 

Paris. 


The only answer to give in the present state of 
science is that we have a great number of similar ex¬ 
amples, which prove their reality and eliminate 
chance. They can only be explained by a compara¬ 
tive study. Was the soul of the deceased not in 
action in this case ? 

Can we try to interpret these ‘ ‘ coincidences 91 as 
symbolic? 

What is a clock or a watch? It is an instrument 
for measuring time . Now time is the essential ele¬ 
ment of life, and leads to death. 

In the universal psychic force which governs all 
things there is an unknown intelligent principle as¬ 
sociated with all events, both great and small—the 
evolution of a world, the instinct of a bird or that 
of an insect. 


HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 157 

Would not the stoppage of an instrument measur¬ 
ing time correspond to the stoppage of a life ? And 
would it not thus have a sense, a significance, in¬ 
stead of being a casual effect of an unknown cause ? 

These physical effects associated with the dead 
are surely incomprehensible. A stopped clock which 
starts going; an object which falls. Chance, placed 
at the service of the calculus of probabilities, does 
not explain these coincidences. A long time ago 
( L’lnconnu, p. 175), I published a story telling of 
the fall, with a great clatter, of a coffee service, 
coinciding with the hour at which the son of the 
house died in Africa. In that letter, dated May 4, 
1899, there was another incident, which I did not 
publish. Here it is: 

My grandparents had left the country and gone to live 
at La Rochelle. 

A new coffee service had been put on the mantelpiece as 
before. Six years afterwards, in 1841, my grandparents 
heard the same noise in the parlour. They ran up. Door 
and windows were shut, so there was no draught in this 
case either. 

On entering the room, my grandparents were amazed 
to see the same phenomena as that which had occurred 
at the death of their son. The service lay in a heap of 
fragments. 

A great fear oppressed them: what new bereavement 
would they hear of ? Some days afterward they heard of 
the death of their son-in-law, carried off by an epidemic 
on the very morning on which the service was broken for 
the second time. 

My grandfather, who is not inclined to superstition but 
rather sceptical of imaginary things, told these facts to my 
father and then to my mother. I have it from them. The 
seriousness and strictly honourable character of the per¬ 
sons in question admits no doubt concerning their truth¬ 
fulness. 

(Mlle.) Meyer. 

Niobt (DEUX-SivBES). (Letter 549.) 


158 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Let me say again that we do not understand these 
queer things in the least. But the strictest honesty 
obliges me to announce them. 

The reflections inspired by these trivialities are 
those which have puzzled me for years and years. 
In this connection M. Castex-Degrange, the learned 
Director of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts of 
Lyon, wrote to me on April 17, 1900, after reading 
my work L’Inconnu, as follows: 

I have had occasion, dear Master, to commence the 
reading of the different cases of manifestations of the 
dead related in your work. May I make a remark ? 

I am struck by the childishness of these manifestations: 
unusual noises, windows closed, upsetting a gentleman’s 
coffee, etc. 

As regards this last, which is what happened to my 
father-in-law, it always astonished me. The case is indeed 
absolutely authentic. But it seems to me that whatever 
brought it about might have found something else to do. 
My father-in-law’s brother went through the Normale. He 
was a Doctor of Literature. He knew Hebrew and Sanskrit. 
He was a real Brain. It seems to me it would have been 
more agreeable to his own and his brother’s dignity to 
find something rather less—culinary. And these things 
always fail in that direction. 

According to what Dr. Dariex told you, everything in 
his cabinet was upset. A force capable of displacing a 
light object was therefore available. Why, therefore, not 
take up a pen and put something intelligent on paper? 
Pen and paper are always found on a doctor’s table. 

This has always worried me. You are right a hundred 
times over. We must search with care, not admit or regret 
anything without serious cause. 

(Sg.) Castex-Degrange. 

palais-des-arts, (Letter 899J 

LYON. 

The rational interpretation of these posthumous 
manifestations would be that it is not the intelligent 


HAUNTINGS: ANCIENT, MODERN 159 

and conscious sonl which produces them, hut a force 
inherent in that soul, acting physically, like electric 
induction, a vibration in the ether, an automatic act. 
Our blind ignorance of the psychic world is ap¬ 
palling. No hypothesis is satisfying. We cannot 
maintain that it all comes from us. 

I could add a large number of further observations 
(see also Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, vol. iii, p. 25), 
but shall not try the readers’ patience, who are 
personally familiar with many. 

But since we are dealing with physical effects 
probably attributable to deceased persons, I shall 
mention the following. It is our duty to analyse 
coolly and eliminate every cause of illusion. This is 
what I do, with due regard to the scientific weight 
of the testimony. We have seen the episode of the 
Bishopry of Monaco, the Gironde case, that of Epi- 
nal, those of Paris, etc. If the following story had 
been sent to me by just anybody, I should not have 
attached much importance to it, because illusion is 
possible. But the observation was made with care, 
and the narrator had no analogous sensation in his 
life. This is the story: 

At the beginning of 1893, being in garrison at Mont- 
Valerien, I broke my right leg on the ice, and was taken 
to Versailles military hospital for treatment. It was on 
January 23. 

My wife, who was then very ill, had been in bed since 
the previous December. 

On February 17, I heard of her death. I could only 
leave the hospital in April to return to my quarters in 
Mont-Valerien. 

That evening I went to bed about ten o'clock. Before 
going to sleep I thought over all that had happened in 
the three months. 

At one moment, in the dark, I felt a strong breath 
on my face, as if a fan had been waved in front of it. 


160 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Thinking of my wife I called out loudly: “Is it you, my 
dear wife, who thus show your presence V 9 Immediately, 
another breath passed over my face for several seconds. 
That was all. 

What can we conclude? I was and am sure that it 
was the soul of my wife which wafted me a last and 
final good-bye on the day when I had returned to our 
dwelling. 

I am anxious to send you this observation as an argu¬ 
ment for the survival of the human soul, to be used at 
your discretion. 


(Sg.) Deflandre 

(Retired Colonel), 
(Letter 4473.; 


4, RUE DORIAN, 
PARIS. 


As I remarked before, the value of the observa¬ 
tions depends very much upon the value of the 
observers. An illusion can hardly be admitted here. 
We shall have other cases where illusion is alto¬ 
gether impossible. 


CHAPTER VI 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES AT A PARSONAGE. THE 
TEACHER’S HOUSE. AN INVISIBLE 
COMPANION 

I F the haunted castle of Calvados struck us par¬ 
ticularly by its indisputable authenticity, the 
parsonage in the next story will give absolutely 
the same impression. 

In the report on Phantasms, published by the 
Psychical Research Society, and translated in the 
Anncdes des Sciences Psychiques, the celebrated 
naturalist, Russel Wallace, tells a remarkable story 
of a haunted house, due to a dignitary of the Ang¬ 
lican Church, who lived in the house for twelve 
months, and in which he particularly observed the 
behaviour of the dogs. During an attempted bur¬ 
glary at the parsonage the dogs gave the alarm, 
and the clergyman got up on hearing their ferocious 
barking; but during the noises of haunting they did 
not bark at all, though the noises were louder and 
more disturbing. They were found in a corner in a 
state of abject terror. But let us read the account 
itself, 1 which is worthy of attention. 

It is the observer himself who speaks, a learned 
clergyman, and an upright and reasonable man, in 
the enjoyment of all his intellectual faculties: 

About eighteen years ago, having completed the pro¬ 
bationary period of two years from my ordination as 
deacon, I was in search of a curacy. Amongst others which 

i Proceedings of the 8. P. R., vol. ii., p. 144; Annales, vol. i., 
1891, p. 242. 

161 



162 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


came under my notice was one in the southwest of the 
county of S-. The parish was extensive and the situ¬ 

ation very retired. It was a sole charge, and a commodious 
house was at the disposal of the curate. The curacy was 
accepted, and in due time my wife and I proceeded to 
take possession of our new home. We reached it on the 
afternoon of a dull February day. 

The vicarage we were to occupy was a square spacious 
building, surrounded by lawns and shrubberies, garden 
and orchard. The house was detached, situated a short 
distance from the village, and separated by a road from 
two or three cottages, which were the nearest dwellings. 
Our rooms were large and sufficiently lofty, everything 
was in good repair, and we congratulated ourselves on 
having secured a comfortable home. 

It was, I remember, a Friday afternoon on which we 
arrived, and we worked with a will, and had two or three 
rooms fit for occupancy by Saturday evening. 

Night fell, shutters were fastened, bolts shot, and keys 
turned, and my wife and I retired to bed on that Saturday 
not reluctantly, for we had worked for a couple of days 
as hard as porters in a warehouse. 

We had not as yet engaged a servant, and had, there¬ 
fore, availed ourselves of the help of an honest country 
woman who lived hard by. When I made all fast on the 
Saturday night, that honest country woman, my wife, and 
myself were—to the best of my knowledge and belief— 
the only three living beings within the four walls of the 
vicarage. Long before twelve we were all in the land of 
dreams, and probably some way beyond it—in that realm 
of sleep to which no “extravagant and erring” dream 
ever finds its way. Suddenly, however, there broke on our 
drowsy ears a sound which murdered sleep. In a moment, 
almost before consciousness had come, I was out of bed 
and on my feet, and even then it seemed as if that strange 
noise was only just passing into the accustomed silence 
of deep night. My wife was as abruptly and completely 
roused as myself, and together we listened for some repe¬ 
tition of what had disturbed us, or for some further token 



MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


163 


to guide us to the discovery of its cause. But nothing 
came. It was obviously my business to make an investiga¬ 
tion without delay, for the natural solution of the mystery 
was that some one or more persons had made their way 
into the house. 

Accordingly I hurried on a few articles of dress and 
set out on an exploring expedition. Before doing so, how¬ 
ever, I looked at my watch, and found that it was just 
2.5 a.m. I wish to call particular attention to this fact. 
I made a thorough search over the whole house. I ex¬ 
amined the fastenings of the doors, the shutters of the 
windows. All was safe, all was quiet, everything was in 
its place. There was nothing left for me to do but to 
return to my room, go to bed, and think no more of the 
disturbance. This last was not so easy. Neither my wife 
nor I could persuade ourselves that it was a mistake. The 
sound was so palpable, broke on our sleep with so peremp¬ 
tory a summons, pealed on our half-awakened senses with 
so prolonged a crash, that neither could its reality be 
doubted nor its impression thrown off. 

It struck me then and afterwards as being like the 
crash of iron bars falling suddenly to the ground. Cer¬ 
tainly there was a sharp metallic ring about it. Moreover, 
it was prolonged, and instead of coming from some fixed 
point it seemed to traverse the house like a succession 
of rattling echoes treading hard on one another’s heels. 

I speak of it not specially as it impressed me on the 
particular occasion to which I am referring, but from 
my general estimate of its character, for I may as well 
say at once that my acquaintance with it was not limited 
to the experiences of that one early Sunday morning. Of 
course, on my return to my room, when we talked the 
matter over, it occurred to us to ascertain whether the 
good woman from the village had also been roused by the 
din. However, as she had not herself given any signs 
of alarm, we resolved to wait to see whether she had any 
tale to tell in the morning. 

Well, the remaining hours of darkness passed away 
quietly enough, and when morning came we found that 
the third member of our household had been a sharer 


164 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


with ourselves in the mysterious visitation. She, like us, 
had been rudely awakened, and had long lain awake in a 
state of considerable disquietude and alarm. 

To her, however, the thing was not quite so strange and 
unlooked for as to us. “Oh dear!” she said, “I’ve heard 
tell of it afore; but never till last night did I hear it, and 
don ’t want to again! ’ ’ 

She had heard tell of it before. But there was not 
much more to be got out of her, and she seemed unwilling 
to discuss the subject. “It was a conceit,” she said, and 
that was all she chose to say about it. On one point, 
however, she was clear enough, and that was the necessity 
of going home that evening to look after her house and 
children. She would give us her services during the day, 
but she could not well be spared from home at nights. 
To this effect, therefore, an accommodation was made with 
her, and my wife and I stood committed for the coming 
night to be the sole garrison of the vicarage, whether it 
was to be assailed by tangible force or impalpable sounds. 
The Sunday duties were duly discharged. I met my pa¬ 
rishioners in their church for the first time; looked round 
with satisfaction on a large and attentive, though not 
perhaps especially intelligent, congregation, and could not 
help wondering whether any of those stolid young farmers 
and peasants, whose faces were turned so impassively 
towards the pulpit, had been indulging in a grim practical 
joke at my expense. 

In due time my wife and I found ourselves alone in 
the vicarage, the darkness of a winter night without, a 
snug wainscoted parlour, a bright fire, and sundry crea¬ 
ture comforts visible. Thus we sat till about eight o’clock. 
It then occurred to us to make an examination of the 
house, though we had taken care, as soon as it became 
dark and our handmaid had left us, to make everything 
as far as possible secure. We rose, then, and set off to¬ 
gether, and, passing out of our sitting-room, found our¬ 
selves in the square entrance hall, the door of which 
opened into the garden. Scarcely were we there before 
we heard a noise which made us pause and listen. The 
sound came from the long passage upstairs into which all 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


165 


the bedrooms opened, and was simply the sound of human 
footsteps walking slowly but firmly along the passage. 
There was no mistake about it. Bold, distinct, and strong, 
each footfall reached our ears. At once, candle in hand, 
I dashed upstairs, three steps at a time, and in a moment 
was on the landing and in full view of the passage. But 
there was nothing to be seen. My wife, of course, followed 
me, for she was becoming nervous. Together, therefore, 
we entered and searched the bedrooms. But our search 
was fruitless. If anybody had been there he had con¬ 
trived by some way inexplicable to us to make his escape. 
A more complete and anxious examination of the house 
was the necessary consequence of this adventure, and we 
pretty well satisfied ourselves that, whatever might have 
caused the sounds we had heard, we were not the involun¬ 
tary entertainers of any unbidden guest of flesh and blood. 
To make assurance doubly sure, I unbarred the yard door 
and took a survey of the outside premises. From this 
work, however, I was rather hastily recalled by my wife, 
who announced that the inexplicable footsteps were again 
in motion; and though on my return they had ceased, 
yet once more that night they did us the favour of letting 
us hear them before we went to bed. Now at this point I 
am bound in honesty to say that when we returned to our 
parlour fire, which had a very encouraging and comforting 
look about it, my wife and I, in discussing the matter, 
did hint at the possibility of our having fallen in with 
“a haunted house.” And it is only fair to add that we 
neither of us were so settled in all unbelief of the super¬ 
natural as without further consideration to scout the notion 
as absurd. But assuredly we did not jump at once to 
any such conclusion, and were content with simply passing 
a resolution to the effect that the disturbances were some¬ 
what extraordinary and rather disagreeable than otherwise. 

That night we experienced no further annoyance, and 
indeed for a week or two there is nothing of any particular 
significance to record. In the meantime we found ourselves 
fairly settled. One strong and willing female servant did 
all that we needed to have done indoors, and a lad of 
about fourteen years of age was engaged to look after a 


166 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


couple of ponies and to do the sundry odd jobs. This 
boy, it must be observed, did not sleep in the bouse, so that 
unless we had a visitor, which did not often happen, the 
number of the inmates was only three. Our female servant 
was a stranger from a village at some distance, and had 
not, as far as we knew, any acquaintances in the place. 

For some little time, as I have intimated, we were not 
much disturbed. The unexplained sound of footsteps we 
occasionally heard, but we troubled ourselves as little as 
possible about it, believing that whatever it might be it 
was at all events very inoffensive and not likely to interfere 
much with our comforts or prerogatives. 

However, in due time we were favoured with a new 
development, and that, too, of a kind which was sufficiently 
distinct and obtrusive. There was, it must be understood, 
a range of attics at the top of the house reaching over the 
full extent of it. We found them empty and in good 
repair, and we converted them into storerooms for our 
boxes, packing-cases, etc. They were reached by a small 
staircase opening off the main passage upstairs; and having 
deposited in them everything that we wished to put out 
of the way we secured the staircase door. 

We had gone to bed one night as usual, and were about 
quietly to drop asleep, when all at once there commenced 
a tumult overhead, which very soon made us as wide-awake 
as we had ever been in our lives. The noise was, con¬ 
fessedly, of the most vulgar, commonplace, and substantial 
kind. It was—or rather I should say it seemed to be 
—the result of the tossing about over the attic floors of 
all the boxes, cases, and bundles stored there. It was loud, 
boisterous, and persistent. There was a bump, and a rattle, 
and a roll, and a crash. Of course, an investigation was 
an obvious necessity, but an investigation discovered noth¬ 
ing. All was quiet. Everything was apparently undis¬ 
turbed and as much in order as it ever had been, or, in 
such a place, could be expected to be. We were confessedly 
perplexed, and moreover, as far as that as well as the 
other occurrences went, we were condemned to the humilia¬ 
tion of remaining in a state of unrelieved perplexity. 

But, besides, some supplementary entertainments were 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


167 


provided for our benefit. From time to time a succession 
of distinctly audible knocks would greet our ears. These 
knocks varied in their type. At one time they were hurried, 
eager, impatient; at another, slow and hesitating. But, 
however, in one style or another we were treated to them, 
I should say on the average, four nights a week during 

our sojourn at C-. These were, of all the phenomena, 

the commonest. I am bound, in justice to the unknown 
cause of them, to say that we were seldom disappointed 
in our expectation of hearing them. They were not very 
alarming, certainly, and after a little familiarity had bred 
the requisite measure of contempt, they were not par¬ 
ticularly disturbing. 

One feature about them, however, deserves to be noticed. 
Sometimes, while lying awake, an involuntary listener to 
their tattoo, I was provoked to the use of a little sarcasm 
or what schoolboys would call “ chaff/ ’ I would, for 
instance, address the hypothetical agent and bid it i ‘be 
quiet, and not disturb honest people in their beds,” or I 
would challenge it, if it had any request to make or any 
complaint to lay, “to come out and do it in a manly, 
straightforward way.” Somehow or other these remon¬ 
strances were not well received. They always led to louder, 
more hurried, and, if we may use such a term, more pas¬ 
sionate knocking. The reader may smile at the notion 
of any connection between any wild words and the intensi¬ 
fied rappings, and I do not wish to assert that there must 
necessarily have been any connection. I simply state the 
fact that, coincidently with my challenge, the rappings 
intensified. I do not theorise, I tell a sound, unvarnished 
tale. Possibly it was a coincidence and nothing more. 

Did we—it may be asked—say anything to our neigh¬ 
bours about what we were so frequently experiencing? 
For a considerable time we did not. We had determined 
to hold our tongues for several reasons. In the first place, 
if we talked about what had so much of the mysterious 
about it, we might give rise to exaggerations, and excite 
alarms which would make it a difficult matter to keep a 
servant or to get one. Moreover, we knew little of the 
characters of the people amongst whom we had come, and 



168 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


we thought that if it was the result of a trick we should, 
by saying nothing about it, be more likely to discover 
it, or to tire out the performers by assumed indifference. 
Hence, though our servant, who was a stout-hearted country 
wench, sometimes dropped hints of nocturnal disturbances, 
we always put aside the subject and discouraged her 
attempt to talk about it. So far I have strictly confined 
myself to what came under my own observation—to what 
I heard with my own ears. And I think that the ex¬ 
perience of my wife and myself does not reach beyond 
the rappings, the confused noises in the attics, the well- 
defined pacing of footsteps about the house, and that 
grand satanic crash. On these the changes were from time 
to time rung. 

They began soon after our arrival, they were kept up 
with tolerable activity during our stay, and for anything 
I know we left them behind us when we departed. The 
great noise which greeted us on the first Sunday morning, 
as it was the most startling of all the phenomena, so it 
was the least frequent. Weeks sometimes passed without 
our hearing it at all. But whenever we did hear it—if we 
took the trouble to ascertain—we always found that it 
occurred at two o f clock on a Sunday morning. 

In the course of time, we had incontrovertible evidence 
that it might manifest itself to some person in the house, 
without my wife or myself being conscious of it. Knowing 
how overwhelming the sound always appeared to me when 
I did hear it, I cannot but consider this fact one of the 
most wonderful things in the whole business. I will show, 
however, that it was so. 

As the winter passed away, and our country became more 
attractive, we had a few visitors; amongst the earlier 
comers was a young lady, a very near relative of my wife. 
We agreed to say nothing to her about our own experi¬ 
ences, partly because we did not want her to be frightened 
by anticipation, and partly because we wished for a little 
independent, unprejudiced, and spontaneous testimony. 
We very soon got it; our friend had not been many nights 
with us before she began to put questions as to why we 
had made such a stir in the house after everybody, as she 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


169 


supposed, had retired to rest. Our answers to these en¬ 
quiries were, as might be expected, a little vague and 
unsatisfactory. Once or twice she asked whether there was 
to be a funeral, for she had heard under her window 
what she concluded to be the sexton digging a grave, and 
she expressed a little surprise that he should choose to 
ply his melancholy trade during the hours of darkness. 
She was, of course, assured, as was indeed the case, that 
no funeral was about to take place, and, moreover, that 
whatever she heard under her window, it was at all events 
not the process of grave-digging, for the churchyard lay 
on the other side of the house. This was conclusive enough, 
no doubt, against her theory, but she did not the less 
persist in asserting that on several occasions she had heard 
a noise beneath her window, and that that noise was, in her 
judgment, the result of some form or other of spade- 
husbandry. I have no doubt of the reality of the impression 
made on her mind, but I never myself heard the sounds 
which she described. 

I was not, however, particularly surprised when, on 
another occasion, she told us that someone had walked 
along the passage, and knocked at her door, but that in 
answer to her call of “Who’s there?” no reply had been 
vouchsafed, and no attempt at entrance into her room 
had been made. 

At length Sunday morning arrived, and we met at the 
breakfast table. 

“Whatever was the matter last night?” was our kins¬ 
woman ’s earliest greeting. 11 What a clatter somebody made! 
I was so thoroughly awakened, that I got up and should 
have come out of my room to see what had happened had 
it not been that I was afraid of encountering your dogs! 
However, I was so much disturbed that I could not easily 
compose myself again to rest, and as I stood at my window, 
peering into the darkness, I heard the church clock strike 
two.” Hereupon my wife and I exchanged very significant 
looks. Our friend had heard that night—though we had 
not—what we had begun to call “The Great Sabbath 
Alarum.” We then told her something of our own ex¬ 
perience, and her impression of the sound harmonised with 


170 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


our own. I shall only mention one more incident collateral 
to what we ourselves observed, for it is on our personal 
experience that I rest the value and the interest of my 
story. 

We were absent from home for a week or two during- the 
autumn, and on our return our servant reported the 
following occurrences: 

One evening she had gone out into the village to do some 
business and had left the servant boy in sole charge of the 
house. He was seated by the kitchen fire, when he heard 
someone, as it seemed, tramping about the passages. He 
went to ascertain who it was, and w T hat might be his busi¬ 
ness, but finding no one, he returned to the kitchen and 
tried to fancy that he was mistaken. Presently he again 
heard the apparent and palpable sound of human feet, 
and again he ventured to explore the premises, though 
with nerves a little more unsteady, and a glance more 
hurried and retrospective. Again he made a bootless quest. 
But when from his quiet seat in the chimney-corner he 
heard for a third time the same mysterious echoes, it was 
too much for boyish flesh and blood. He rushed out of 
the house, hurried down to the village, and never stopped 
till he told his breathless tale to the gaping inmates of his 
father’s cottage. I have already mentioned that for some 
time I said nothing to any of my parishioners on the 
subject of these nocturnal disturbances. 

Ultimately, however, I introduced the subject in a con¬ 
versation with a very excellent Christian woman, a long 
and patient sufferer from a bodily infirmity, which alto¬ 
gether confined her to her bed. She had seen better days, 
was a Churchwoman of a good old type, full of a calm and 
sober religious spirit. Her cottage was just opposite to 
the vicarage, and the window of the little room in which 
she lay commanded a full view of it. 

I told her what from time to time we had heard and 
asked her if any reports of such matters had ever reached 
her ears. She at once said that there had often been talk 
of such disturbances, and that some, at least, of my pre¬ 
decessors in the curacy had been a good deal annoyed by 
them. Moreover, she added what I am sure she would not 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


171 


have said if she had not thoroughly believed it—that she 
had herself at times seen flickering and intermittent light 
at the attic windows. Now it must be borne in mind that, 
during my occupancy of the house, these attics were not 
used, that I never myself entered them at night but on 
the occasions when I sought to discover the cause of the 
noise heard there, that there was but one possible entrance 
to the whole suite, and that we had made that secure, 
and as far as we could judge, had the means of admission 
exclusively in our own power. 

My informant further told me of certain transactions 
which had taken place in the house in the last century, 
and of which she had heard from her elders, which, if 
they could be verified, and could be fairly connected with 
the disturbances in the relation of cause and effect, would 
certainly assist in enabling one to arrive at a theory as 
to the nature of the disturbances themselves. 

But it is not my object to theorise, but simply to relate 
phenomena and leave them to be judged on their merits. 
For the facts related, I again say I can honestly vouch; 
for their cause I am almost as much thrown on conjecture 
as my readers, for with all the pains I took, I never could 
make any discovery. The explanations which will prob¬ 
ably suggest themselves to many did not fail to suggest 
themselves to us. There was first of all the possibility of a 
practical joke. But supposing that with the care I took, 
and the watch I kept any persons could have gained 
admission to the house, they must have been the most 
patient and dreary jokers that ever gave their unrequited 
and unappreciated services to the genius of mischief. To 
say nothing of former years, only fancy anyone troubling 
himself to keep up for twelve months at all hours of the 
night (and occasionally in the daytime) a succession of 
incoherent and inarticulate noises. Methinks a performer 
of average ability would have tried the experiment once 
or twice in way of a visible manifestation. 

Then, again, there is the resource in such cases of rats. 
Well! I have a great respect for the capabilities of rats 
in the way of nocturnal clamour. If, however, they really 
achieved all that came under my own observation, then 


172 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


I must say that their abilities are wonderful. How, for 
instance, did they accomplish—and how did they so exactly 
time—the Great Sunday Crash? There is a circumstance 
that deserves to be considered by anyone who may care 
to suggest an explanation of what I have related. I have 
always been something of a dog-fancier, and I had at that 
time two Skye terriers of pure breed, excellent house¬ 
dogs, uncompromising foes to vermin, ready for any fun, 
with no delicacy as to letting their sweet voices be heard, 
if they saw good reason for speaking out. Once during our 

sojourn at C- they did speak out to good purpose. 

The winter was a rough one, times were not good, and 
there were several robberies of houses in the neighbour¬ 
hood. An attempt was made on the vicarage. My trusty 
dogs, however, gave prompt alarm. I was roused by their 
fierce barking, reached a window in time to see more than 
one dark figure on the lawn below, and was able to address 
such a remonstrance to them as led to a retreat, expedited 
in some measure by the discharge of a few shots from a 
pistol. I mention this incident simply to contrast the 
behaviour of the dogs on that occasion with their conduct 
in the presence of the mysterious noises. Against these 
they never once by bark or otherwise made any demon¬ 
stration. Perhaps they did not hear them. It would seem 
otherwise, however, for when at such times, in making 
search about the house, I came where they were, I always 
found them cowering in a state of pitiable terror. Of this 
I am quite sure—that they were more perturbed than 
any other members of the establishment. If not shut up 
below they would make their way to our bedroom door 
and lie there, crouching and whining, as long as we would 
allow them. 

Our experience of the phenomena, which I have de¬ 
scribed, extended over a period of twelve months. At the 
end of that time I was appointed to a benefice in another 
part of England, and consequently resigned my curacy. 
We turned our backs on the vicarage, not sorry, it must 
be confessed, to be done with our nocturnal alarms, but 
disappointed at not having been able to discover the cause 
of them. 



MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


173 


I have never visited the place since, and never had the 
opportunity of learning whether the attentions paid by 
those secret and invisible agents to us have ever been 
renewed in favour of our successors. 


This haunting cannot leave our minds in any doubt 
any more than those of Calvados or Correze. 

Here is another example, which deserves being 
placed beside that of the parsonage just described. 
My friend, Dr. Dariex, received the description in 
1895, and published it in that year in his Annales des 
Sciences Psychiques (p. 76). It is an observation 
scientifically made and minutely described: 

For twenty years I have kept the secret of strange and 
unexampled occurrences, but now I shall give you a pre¬ 
cise and rigorous description of them. 

In the first days of 1867 I was a national school teacher 
at Labastide-Paumes (Haute-Garonne). 

I was then twenty years of age. 

My dwelling, standing forty yards from the parish 
church, was an ancient presbytery placed entirely at my 
disposal. In bad repair in 1865, it was repaired at the 
beginning of 1866 for my convenience. When I arrived it 
looked as good as new. 

The ground floor, too low to be habitable, served as a 
cellar and a wood-store. It communicated with the first 
floor by means of a wide oak staircase. At the foot of the 
stairs were two doors, one leading out of doors, while the 
other led to the ground floor, which had no other interior 
entrance. 

I never used the attics. 

I exclusively inhabited the first floor in the company 
of my brother, Vital, now a professor of mathematics at 
the Belfort lycee, and of my sister, Frangoise. The dwelling 
consisted of four very spacious rooms, designated in the 
annexed plan by the letters A, B, C, D. A was the kitchen 
and dining-room combined, B my bedroom, C my brother’s 


174 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


room, and D my sister’s. E indicates the landing of the 
staircase on the first floor. 

The schoolroom did not form part of the presbytery, but 
joined it back to back. It dated from 1865. 

In the evening we went to bed generally about nine 
o’clock, and got up at 6 a.m. Before going to bed I care- 



Abbreviations: W., Window; D, door; CH, fireplace; C, chest of 
drawers; B, sideboard; L, bed; T, table; RT, round table; A, 
wardrobe; Ch c, closed chimney; S, sink; Gd, glass door. 


fully closed the openings leading out of doors and the 
only door which led from the first floor to the ground floor. 

I had no cat, nor dog, nor caged bird. Since the house 
was repaired animals from the neighbourhood could not 
have got in. 

I must say, before proceeding, that I am not supposed 
to belong to a fanciful family. Besides, I give my name 
and address in full, and my mental state can be investi¬ 
gated. 

Well, on a night of April, 1867, towards 11 p.m., I was 
suddenly awakened by a peculiar noise. Loud sharp raps 
were heard on the table and sideboard in the kitchen as 
with a stick swung vertically down. I listened. Bang! 


















MYSTEBIOUS NOISES 175 

bang! bang! And a few minutes afterwards again. Bang! 
bang! bang! 

Curiously enough, I was not afraid. With a turn of the 
hand I lighted the candle, jumped out of bed, and went 
through the passage into the kitchen. I found nothing 
out of place and heard not the slightest noise. I went 
downstairs. The two doors mentioned before were locked 
and bolted. No human being could have escaped that way, 
for how could he, either outside or in the cellar, lock the 
doors in this way and leave the keys in the locks? 

Yet I had not been dreaming. I went back to the 
kitchen and opened the sideboard—nothing! I lighted up 
the chimney. The tiles placed there to prevent the rain 
falling on the fire while allowing the smoke to pass were 
in their places. 

I passed again through the kitchen, the passage, and my 
bedroom, also into the rooms of my brother and my sister. 
They slept profoundly. “Of course,” I said to myself, “I 
must have been dreaming. ” Sol lay down again. Hardly 
had I put out my candle when the noise started afresh. 
Bang! bang! bang! Then some plates moved in the sink, 
spoons and forks jumped in a drawer, and chairs danced 
in the kitchen. 

This lasted until about 3 a.m., and was repeated every 
night for two weeks. 

Yet on getting up every morning I found the glasses 
and plates, which ought to have been reduced to frag¬ 
ments by their furious escapades, arranged just as they 
were when I went to bed. 

Only once I found a chair upset, and a napkin which 
had been on the back of it the previous night was thrown 
about two feet away. Then I shuddered. For the first time 
since the commencement of the phenomena I was shaken 
by an absurd and unreasoned fear. Why not confess it? 

One evening before going to bed I had drunk some 
sugared water. The coffee-spoon which had served to stir 
the sugar was left in the glass. I had written a note and 
left it under the glass, saying: “If spirits make the noise, 
will they please keep quiet and allow us to sleep.” 

For fully two hours the spoon turned in the glass, only 


176 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


stopping occasionally for barely a minute. Once at least, 
possibly twice, the glass seemed to roll on the table without 
falling on the flags of the kitchen, where it would have 
been broken to pieces. 

On getting up I found the glass, the note, and the 
spoon placed absolutely as they were the previous evening! 

One night three raps sounded on the wood of my bed 
with a sound as of a stick falling vertically on the panel. 

This time a friend (T. L.) had consented to pass the 
night in my company. He addressed me politely: “I 
believe that you have some infernal power, and that you 
are making the hubbub without meaning to do so.” An 
attestation written by him is found below. 

Another night it was a friend of my youth who came 
to me. His attestation is also appended, as well as a 
declaration by the Abbe Ruffat, who even last year, in 
spite of his eighty-six years, administered the parish of 
Labastide-Paumes. The testimony of my brother Vital will 
be read as well. All these witnesses are still alive. 

One night I heard steps in the kitchen. They were 
heavy, ponderous steps of a man or woman. I went in, 
and only found complete silence and a total absence of 
visible beings. 

Another time I had been away and only returned very 
late. For an hour at least my brother had heard steps in 
my bedroom. Thinking that I had come home, he had 
called to me several times from his bed. As I came in he 
cried in a temper: 11 Will you let us sleep at last? You 
have kept us awake for more than an hour!” “But I 
have only just come in,” I said with some feeling. “I 
can understand your temper, because as I came up I 
heard the witches’ dance in the kitchen.” It was true. 

This inexplicable noise began to alarm me, and I de¬ 
cided one morning to speak to the venerable curate of the 
district, Abbe Ruffat. The worthy man received my dec¬ 
laration with more apparent indifference than astonish¬ 
ment. He said: “All this is of slight importance. The 
house is old. It probably has not been blessed for a long 
time past. If the noise comes again I shall go there and 
bless it; and since a prayer to God is often heard, per- 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


177 


haps you will hear nothing more.” From that day the 
noise ceased entirely. This coincidence is very singular, 
and is perhaps the most astonishing fact among the strange 
facts which I have told. 

(Sg.) J. SALIERES 

(Professor of Mathematics at the Lycee of Pontivy). 


Attestations. 


I. 

I certify that all the facts related by my brother as 
having happened in 1867 at Labastide-Paumes, canton of 
L’Isle-en-Dodon (Haute-Garonne), in the house placed at 
the disposal of the teacher by the parish, are exactly 
correct. 

(Sg.) Vital Salieres 

(Professor of Mathematics at the Lycee of Belfort). 

BELFORT, 

June 25, 1891. 


II. 

In 1867 M. J. Sali&res, teacher at Labastide-Paumes 
asked me to spend a night with him and to witness some 
extraordinary phenomena, and the following occurred: 

About 11 p.m. some rather violent blows were struck, 
as with a stick held horizontally, on the table and side¬ 
board of the room which served as a kitchen. At the same 
time chairs danced, plates moved without breaking, and 
glasses knocked against each other, being found intact 
afterwards. 

About 1 a.m. three distinct blows, rather loud, were 
struck in our own room on the wood of M. Salieres’s bed. 

The whole house is occupied by M. Salieres, one of his 
brothers, and one of his sisters. The latter could not be 
the author of the noises, which only happened on the first 
floor. 

All the openings to the outside, as also the sole door 


178 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


which led from the first floor to the ground floor, were 
carefully closed. 

No human being could have entered from outside into 
the house through any of these openings. Nothing unus¬ 
ual was noticed on searching the rooms. 

I consider it impossible that these phenomena could 
have been produced by terrestrial living beings. 

(Sg.) T. L. 2 

LABASTIDE-PAUMEs, 

June 26, 1891. 


III. 

At the time when M. Salieres, now Professor of Mathe¬ 
matics at Pontivy Lycee, was teacher at Labastide-Paumes 
in 1867, he asked me to spend a night with him to certify 
certain facts. 

About 11 p.m., when the outside doors and windows 
were solidly shut, and the house had been carefully in¬ 
spected by himself and me, we heard heavy blows on the 
kitchen table. Bang! bang! bang! They went on until 
at least 3 a.m. There were knocks on a door and a side¬ 
board also. The latter was in the kitchen, to which the 
door gave access. 

A candle being lighted, a minute inspection was made 
of the room. While our inspection lasted nothing was 
heard, but on putting out the candle the noise recom¬ 
menced. 

As I cannot admit that beings of flesh and bone could 
get into the house through keyholes and out invisibly, I 
must admit that these facts are as inexplicable as they are 
incontestable. 

(Sg.) L. N. 

Labastide-Paumes, 

February 19, 1891. 

What do these observations prove? 

They prove, like the preceding ones, that there 


2 At M. Saliere’s request only initials are given. 



MYSTERIOUS NOISES 179 

are haunted houses, and that those who deny their 
existence either do not know the facts or act in bad 
faith. We cannot take all the observers for hallu- 
cinated persons. 

I do not discuss explanations; I state facts. State¬ 
ment is simpler than explanation. 

The rarity of authentic observations has no bear- 
ing upon their reality, whatever certain queer dis¬ 
putants may say. 

What are the witnesses consulted by the law? 
Those who have seen, naturally. 

What should we think of the following sentence: 

“Whereas ten persons saw the accused commit 
his crime and forty million did not, the accused 
is acquitted.’’ 

Would the forty million inhabitants of France 
who had not seen it have the slightest negative 
weight ? 

Yet this is the sort of reasoning advanced by our 
adversaries against these sincere researches. 

In an excellent article on haunted houses, Profes¬ 
sor (Sir) William Barrett summarises his views as 
follows: 

1. Fraud and hallucination do not suffice to explain 
all the phenomena. 

2. The noises, movements of objects, and other physical 
phenomena seem to have some relation with an invisible 
intelligence which, in spite of its imperfection, has some 
resemblance to our human intelligence. 

3. These phenomena are usually associated with a per¬ 
son or a locality, so that a point d’appui seems necessary 
to their production. 

4. These phenomena are sporadic and temporary, lasting 
some days or months, appearing and disappearing sud¬ 
denly without a known cause. 1 2 3 4 


3 “Poltergeists, Old and New,” Proceedings 8.P.R ., 25, 1911, p. 377. 



180 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


I think with Barrett and Bichet that the testi¬ 
monies are too precise to be denied. 

Very numerous cases, severely examined, that 
there are movements of objects without contact, and 
noises, of which no ordinary mechanical explanation 
can be given. 

It is absurd to suppose that for weeks and months 
several individuals, masters of themselves, consci¬ 
entious, responsible, scrupulously observant in a 
dwelling said to be haunted, should have seen non¬ 
existent things, and heard loud threatening noises 
which did not occur. If it were a single case or a 
single person one could respect the hypothesis of 
illusions or hallucinations. But that explanation is 
childish. We say “hallucination” to get rid, by 
means of a convenient word, of an unusual fact 
which troubles our peace. This procedure is that 
of a simpleton. 

But let us not stop to make useless discussions, 
but continue our study. In any case, we may con¬ 
clude from what happened at the teacher’s house, 
as we did from the happenings at Calvados, Cor- 
reze, etc., that there are invisible beings . 

Phenomena of haunting take all sorts of forms. 
Some show an unintelligent triviality, which is 
rather disconcerting. Others show some association 
with the dead. Others appear quite independent 
of deceased persons, whether known or unknown. 
Others, again, give evidence of intelligence without 
any association with a person who was formerly 
alive. We are in an invisible and unknown world. 
We must analyse these amazing occurrences all the 
more carefully. 

I shall here quote a recent letter of 1900 (Letter 
898 in my list) from Mme. Manoel de Granford, 
my colleague of the Societe des Gens de Lettres, re- 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 


181 


porting a personal observation of a singular char¬ 
acter and incontestable authenticity: 

Paris, 

RUE DU PRINTEMPS, 

February, 1900. 

You know, dear Master and Friend, that I am incapable 
of deceiving you, as you accuse some correspondents of 
doing whom you do not know from Adam or Eve. Your 
scientific method may be severe, but you cannot doubt me. 

Without wasting your time, I take the liberty of send¬ 
ing you this personal narrative, being sure that it will 
interest you because it is rigorously exact and because 
it happened to myself. 

When I was very young I was extremely delicate, and 
one icy winter I was ordered to go south and stay there 
for at least a year. I left for a large town of Languedoc 
where my mother and grandmother lived, and, not far 
from them, I rented a quiet house in a quiet street, con¬ 
sisting of a single storey with a basement, built between 
front and back gardens, and surrounded by very high 
walls. There was no access to it except by a gate which 
was kept shut, even in the day, and by a flight of seven 
or eight steps leading to the front of the house and a 
large hall. 

These details are necessary in order to explain that 
I was well guarded and well shielded from any tempta¬ 
tion to break out. I had a man-servant given me by 
Khalil Pasha with a high recommendation for devotion. 
This good fellow “made the handle of the breadbasket 
dance” to an extraordinary extent, but apart from that 
he was an excellent servant who would have got himself 
killed to defend me from any danger. Besides him, I had 
brought my chambermaid from Paris, and had engaged a 
cook in the country to complete my staff 

Imagine me, then, established with my young children 
in a house lighted by the sun from dawn till eve, per¬ 
fumed by those large double violets which seem pale with 
the trembling intensity of the perfume they give off. No 
neighbours, male or female. No noise around me. A 


182 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


nameless peace descended from the great azure sky which 
stretched its silken veil over us. I thought myself in 
Paradise—but it was a mistake. 

The first night passed at No. 9, Rue de la Croix, was 
peaceful. But on the second I was suddenly awakened by 
a noise similar to that made by a badly trained footman 
at his morning’s work. I supposed, with my eyes still 
closed, that my wakeful Antoine was already at work, 
when the clock striking midnight told me that I was 
mistaken. I arose at once and called my servant, who 
appeared very sleepy; I told him what I had heard and 
asked him to inspect the house. He did. Nothing unusual 
appeared. But as he saw that I was very much fright¬ 
ened, he asked for a book (I believe I gave him Monte 
Cristo) and watched the whole night in the dining-room, 
reading Dumas’s masterpiece. 

That was the beginning of manifestations which for a 
whole year have occurred in the house of the Rue de la 
Croix: noises, books flung on the ground, scratching at 
doors and in the curtains, firearms going off, smell of 
powder, bursts of laughter—we were spared nothing— 
but the most curious thing was as follows: 

Every evening—please note, every evening—between 10 
p.m. and midnight, a great hammer blow was struck on 
the front door leading to the steps. Remember that in 
order to get there it was necessary to climb a high gate, 
traverse a court and mount the steps of the little terrace. 
As soon as the blow was struck Antoine rushed to open 
the door, and never a person did he find. Disappointed 
several times, and much humiliated at being tricked by 
one of those provincials whom he heartily despised, he 
determined to watch by the door itself, standing with one 
hand on the latch and in the other a thorn stick with 
which to chastise the nocturnal joker. On the blow fall¬ 
ing, he was ready to rush forth and fling himself on the 
intruder. But in vain did he leave the comfort of his 
arm-chair and the society of my blonde chambermaid whom 
he greatly admired. Never did the hammer shake the door 
with its strident noise but at the moment when Antoine, 
overcome by sleep, left the door, took up his lamp and 


MYSTERIOUS NOISES 183 

descended the inner staircase. Furious at being thus 
played with, my servant ran up at lightning speed, his 
stick in the air, threw himself on the door, opened it, 
crossed the court, and flung himself at the gate—but 
nothing met his eye. The silence and peace of the street 
were not disturbed by any steps or flight. All was asleep, 
even the dogs and cocks, in the peaceful Rue de la Croix 
where I have gone for rest. 

Once, when my brother chaffed me about the mysteri¬ 
ous though noisy spirit, I wanted him to make sure and 
asked him to stay with me. He consented, with many 
sarcasms at my poor spirit. I let him sleep in my dress¬ 
ing-room, separated from my room by a small salon. Al¬ 
though on that night I had heard nothing myself, I was 
awakened in the morning by my brother with a scared 
face, no longer mocking, who declared he would leave at 
once, without breakfast, as he had been unable to close 
his eyes a minute. 

“You know,” he said at the gate, “you might offer me 
100,000 francs for passing another night here, and I should 
refuse.’ ’ 

What had he heard ? I do not know. My brother never 
wanted to speak about it, he always got so angry; but I 
suppose that “Coco,” as we irreverently called our too- 
familiar spirit, played him some of its tricks, as it did 
one evening to my mother, by striking such a thunderous 
blow beside her that she nearly fainted. I had to have 
her taken home by the valiant Antoine. 

You may ask how I dared stay in the house with such 
a host. Well, it is very strange, because I am naturally 
very timid, but I was not at all afraid of “Coco.” I 
talked to him, scolded him, asked him for services. I 
remember one evening, as I was dressing for the theatre, 
I told my maid that I was expecting an important letter, 
and, if it would arrive that evening by the last post, 
“Coco” would oblige me by rapping twice on the mirror 
in front of me. Immediately the two raps sounded. My 
maid let fall the taper in her hand and fled howling with 
fright. The letter arrived as announced. 

And then—well, that is all. At the end of a year I 


184 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


left that town and returned to Paris. I hoped “Coco” 
would follow me, but he did not. I heard nothing more. 
I have lost the faculty of attracting the spirits in which, 
after all I have told you, I have but scant faith. I find 
it difficult to believe that if so many dear ones now dead 
remain invisible, unknown spirits should be allowed to 
manifest themselves to us. But I conclude nothing, be¬ 
cause I know nothing. I only tell you a true story. 

(Sg.) Manoel de Granford. 

What shall we call the cause of these manifesta¬ 
tions? I have discussed with the narrator the hy¬ 
pothesis of an unconscious duplication of person¬ 
ality and the externalisation of her spirit, as 
proposed by our friend, A. de Eochas. But neither 
hypothesis seems fit to be taken seriously. The 
brother’s observation especially is opposed to them. 
Was it a random spirit, an Audible Invisible? Or 
a soul of a deceased person? In any case, it is an 
anonymous spirit. And our interpretation is iden¬ 
tical with the conclusion published on p. 133. 

I have received observations from all ranks of 
society, from the highest to the lowest. They are 
available everywhere to those who take the trouble 
to investigate. 

That which follows is not the least strange among 
them. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE FANTASTIC VILLA OF COMEADA, 
COIMBRA (PORTUGAL) 

A T Comeada, a suburb of Coimbra, a town par¬ 
ticularly celebrated for its secular Univer¬ 
sity, certain fantastic phenomena occurred 
which had better be set down here: 

At the beginning of October, 1919, Mr. Homem Christo, 
a first-year law student, expelled from the University for 
refusing to conform to a religious custom and for armed 
revolt, had rented at Comeada a house consisting of a 
ground floor and first floor, where he had installed him¬ 
self with his young wife and two maids. This lady, from 
the first night, complained of hearing strange noises in 
the house. Eight days afterwards, one of their friends, 
Mr. Gomez Paredes, a second-year law student at the Uni¬ 
versity, having had business in Comeada, came and asked 
them for a night’s hospitality, which was granted to him 
readily. After they had passed the evening together, they 
each retired to their bedrooms about 1 a.m. 

Hardly had he put out his candle, when Mr. Gomez 
Paredes heard knocks on his window panes. He got up, 
lighted his candle, and opened his window quite widely, 
but saw nobody. He lay down again, and put out his 
candle, but then he heard steps quite close to him, and 
doors opening and closing all over the building. He 
lighted up again and searched everywhere, under the bed, 
the furniture, and so on. Nothing, nobody. He put out 
the light, and the noises recommenced. He lighted up, 
and they stopped. Not wishing to derange anybody, he 
suffered the situation all night long, and in the morning 
he asked his friend, Mr. Homem Christo, whether he had 
heard anything unusual in the night. “I heard nothing 

185 


186 HAUNTED HOUSES 

at all,” he replied. “It is natural, because I sleep like 
a dormouse. And what is there to hear? There are no 
thieves in the house, and all the noises are pure fancy .’’ 
Knowing the positivist convictions of Mr. Christo, Mr. 
Paredes did not insist. He returned home to Coimbra 
and told his father what had happened. The latter 
listened with attention and said: “That is very singular. 
Another tenant before your friend left that house on 
account of the noises, and a woman who now minds the 
meteorological observatory situated opposite the house, hav¬ 
ing passed a night there, declares she will never go there 
again, as the house is bewitched. I advise you to tell your 
friend all the details and ask him to sacrifice a night to find 
out what it can be.” 

Mr. Paredes took his father’s advice and asked Mr. 
Christo to devote a night to personal observations. The 
latter laughed, and went to bed as usual. Yet that night 
he heard noises which interested him and prevailed upon 
him to watch the following night, and ask his friend to bear 
him company. It should be noted that everybody slept 
on the first floor, and nobody was on the ground floor. 

That night Mr. Christo told the two maids to go to 
bed as usual about 11 p.m. Himself, his wife, and his 
friend watched for developments. While there was a 
light nothing abnormal occurred, but as soon as it was 
extinguished, big blows were heard on the ground-floor 
door in the garden. Mr. Christo quickly descended the 
stairs and stationed himself by the door. The blows started 
afresh. He opened suddenly, and saw nobody. He went 
out to ascertain whether anyone ran away down a neigh¬ 
bouring lane. Hardly was he out when the door banged 
behind him and was locked. Outside he saw nobody. To 
return home he had to knock, and his wife came down 
and opened the door. Mr. Christo, much interested, was 
convinced that somebody had played a practical joke. 
He took up his revolver. “We shall see,” he said. 

The doors went on being shaken, and in a little room 
next to their bedroom, which had no exit, the noises were 
even louder. All this passed in complete darkness, for 
as soon as a light was struck nothing more was heard. 


VILLA OF COMEADA 


187 


Mr. Homem Christo, more and more anxious to discover 
the trickster, stood on the landing of the stairs leading 
to the ground floor, revolver in hand. Hardly had a 
match which he held in his fingers gone out when he 
heard, close to his face, a loud burst of laughter which 
echoed over the whole house. He saw a white cloud in 
front of him, and two wisps of whitish light issuing from 
his nostrils. It was too much! The observer felt his 
courage giving way. The phenomena continued more or 
less the same until 4 a.m. 

Next day Mr. Christo, who did not know or admit the 
possibility of psychic phenomena, resolved to call in the 
aid of a policeman, so that he should be a witness the fol¬ 
lowing night. He wanted to catch the trickster at any 
cost, and was afraid of losing his coolness and killing 
somebody. An officer and two constables were placed at 
his disposal. When night fell the officer took up a po¬ 
sition outside in the garden commanding the front door, 
to see if anybody entered or left. The two constables re¬ 
mained inside with Mr. Christo, Mr. Gomes Paredes and 
another friend, Mr. Henrique Sotto Armas, who had come 
specially that night to witness whatever occurred. After 
searching and inspecting every corner of the house the 
lights were extinguished. Knocks on the front door were 
immediately heard downstairs. ‘ 1 Do you hear that ? ’’ said 
Mr. Christo to the constables. 11 Perfectly, ’ ’ they said. 
The knocks continued, and Mr. Christo suddenly opened 
the door, but, as on the previous evening, he saw nobody, 
except, indeed, the officer calmly walking a short way off. 
“Who knocked?” he asked the latter. “Nobody/’ “But 
did you not hear the knocks?” asked Mr. Christo. “I 
heard nothing at all,” said the officer. “That is too 
much; go inside!” said Mr. Christo. “And you con¬ 
stables had better watch outside.” The same thing hap¬ 
pened. The officer heard the knocks, but the constables 
neither saw nor heard anything. “Ah, that’s it,” said 
Mr. Christo; “let us all go indoors. That is where we 
must investigate.” 

He sent one of the constables into the room where Mr. 
Paredes had slept, on the first floor. When the constable 


188 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


went to sit down on the bench, the bench was drawn away 
so suddenly that he fell to the ground. The two friends, 
Mr. Paredes and Mr. Sotto Armas, were stationed with 
the officer on the ground floor. The wife remained in 
her room, and the servants in theirs, all on the first 
floor. Mr. Christo, as on the previous night, remained 
on the landing of the stairs leading to the ground floor. 
As soon as the lights went out, the noises and blows set 
in, especially in the small room, where there was only 
a trunk, and which adjoined the bedroom. It looked 
like a defiance. 

Suddenly, in the guest room there was a terrible noise, 
like a fierce struggle. Everybody rushed in, thinking the 
constable had caught the offender. Disappointment! 
There was only an infuriated constable hitting out with 
his sword right and left, running from all the crowd 
which rushed in, back into a little boudoir where there 
was a wardrobe with a mirror, which he broke in his 
fury. He had to be restrained by force, or he would have 
gone mad. After that, things calmed down again. Lights 
were put out once more. Mr. Christo took up his place 
again on the landing and received on his left cheek a 
formidable blow which made him scream, for it seemed to 
him that fangs hooked his flesh to tear it out. Lights 
were struck, and everybody could see four finger-marks 
on Mr. Homem Christo’s left cheek, which was red, while 
his right cheek was ashen. It was midnight. Everybody 
—the wife, the maids, the friends, the constables, and the 
officer, together with Mr. Homem Christo—were so terri¬ 
fied that they did not want to remain another hour in the 
house. With his wife, his servants, and his friends, he 
went to the hotel to pass the rest of the night there. The 
stupefied police went home, swearing never again to enter 
such a place. 

Mr. Homem Christo sublet the house, but after two 
days the new tenant went away, declaring that the house 
was uninhabitable. 

This narrative was given by my friend Mme. 
Frondoni Lacombe, of Lisbon, and published in the 


VILLA OF COMEADA 


189 


Annales des Sciences Psychiques of March, 1910. 
The observer, Mr. Homem Christo, has himself told 
the story in other terms and with more detail in the 
book, Le Parc du Mystere, published in collabora¬ 
tion with Mme. Eachilde in 1923. I have had the 
honour and pleasure of knowing the latter for thirty 
years, and know that she will not admit the reality 
of psychic phenomena at any price, for the respect¬ 
able but disputable reason that her parents were 
the victims of mediums. 

Mr. Homem Christo, on the other hand, has be¬ 
come more and more convinced of their authenticity 
and scientific value, and has made them the chief 
concern of his life. His own account will, therefore, 
be read with interest from the book quoted. 

In the first place, the friend who first came 
to spend the night with him told him the follow¬ 
ing: 

‘ ‘ Having gone off to sleep after smoking for a long time, 
and having no more matches, I was awakened by a sensa¬ 
tion of brightness under the eyelids, resembling that felt 
when one’s closed eyes are struck by the sudden ray of 
a lamp or a fire. I saw before seeing. It fell upon my 
eyelids with such intensity that at last I opened my eyes 
and perceived that the shutters, which I had carefully 
closed in accordance with your recommendation, since I 
was on the ground floor, had parted and that the moon’s 
light fell directly upon my face. I was, or thought I was, 
sure I had closed them hermetically and had pushed the 
bolt into the sill as directed, but I might have made a 
mistake. Then, since I wanted to sleep, suspecting noth¬ 
ing, and since the moonlight bothered me, I went to the 
window, raised it, hung it to the spring provided to keep 
it up, and bent over to pull in the parted shutters. They 
resisted. Now there was no wind. On the ground floor 
it might have been somebody coming along the garden 
path. Suddenly remembering what you and your wife 
had told me, I murmured in a chiding tone, but not loud 


190 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


enough to awaken any of you: ‘ Hullo; if anybody is there, 
let him get out, or he 11 catch it! ’ 

1 ‘ But almost instantly the spring which held up the win¬ 
dow came undone and I got such a furious blow in the 
neck, my dear fellow, that I was nearly choked and had 
to struggle a long time to get free. I did not want to 
call you, as I feared the ridicule of my position. When 
I was out of the trap I closed the window again, and for 
greater safety I inspected the neighbourhood of the gar¬ 
den gate. There was nothing in the garden nor on the 
road, the night was calm, and a bright moon brought out 
the smallest detail of my window shutters as I had left 
them, and showed, of course, no obstacle in front of them. 

“Such evidence has the effect of bringing one back to 
order and coolness. It was clear that I had been mistaken. 
The shutters had not been held by any hand. The fall¬ 
ing of the window was a mere accident. I had been half 
awake, my movements had been badly co-ordinated, as 
sometimes happens when one wakes up suddenly. I closed 
my windows very methodically, put the window down and 
went to bed again. Only this time I did not succeed in 
getting to sleep again. In the first place the back of my 
neck hurt me very much, the blood beat in my arteries, 
I was restless and oppressed and could not settle down. 

‘ ‘ It was then that I observed that horrible thing in front 
of me, with my eyes open to every possible reality: The 
shutters opened again, their bolt having risen quite of 
itself (and I recollected the trouble I had had to get into 
the hole deeply enough, without making a noise), and then 
I heard behind my bed another horrible grinding like a 
muffled laugh. Somebody was making a fool of me, but 
who? ‘Where is the fellow?’ I said, clenching my fist. 
A series of heavy blows replied, struck on the wall, on the 
floor, and on the furniture, blows which found a dull echo 
in myself, as if aimed at me alone. There was nothing 
in my room, neither a hidden animal, nor revolutionaries, 
nothing but myself, shivering in the cold moonlight. My 
word, Francis, I did not take the trouble to warn you, I 
did not take time to think, I just bolted into the garden 
like a lunatic and ran straight before me, without a hat, 


VILLA OF COMEADA 


191 


without even shutting a door. It did not take many min¬ 
utes to get to my father’s house, for I went like the 
wind! ’ ’ 

When my comrade had finished I was silent for a mo¬ 
ment. I had vaguely heard our professors telling about 
11 collective hallucinations, ’ ’ but I could not explain to him 
so many things at the same time, and I was also struck 
by the circumstance that the actions or strange noises hap¬ 
pened in relative darkness, light destroying the phan¬ 
tasmagoria. I just drew his attention to that. “Yes,” 
he replied, “I had, in fact, used up my matches smoking 
last night, hut I saw with my own eyes in the moonlight 
my shutters slowly opening, as if moved by two hands, 
and when I wanted to pull them in I felt the queer re- 
sistence. Whoever held them was stronger than I, I assure 
you! I should swear to that even though that guillotine 
window of yours should cut off my head again. And the 
noises I heard are the same noises as those described by 
your wife. She told you that several walked in the room, 
pulling burdens along and shaking all the furniture as if 
there was a removal. And yet you heard nothing, which 
is another mystery!” 

As for me, it seemed clear to me that after the row of 
my scandal at the University some practical jokers wanted 
to exasperate me: another “rag” among the jolly students 
of Coimbra! One had to forgive them the morbid taste 
of their pleasantry, for after all there was a young wife 
and a six-weeks-old baby in the case. 

The following night had hardly fallen when I installed 
myself in the suspected room, after inspecting the house 
from cellar to attic and locking in the servants. Con¬ 
sidering the artfulness of servants, it was always possible 
that they could be in league with the mischief-makers up 
to a certain point. I provided myself with matches, and 
thinking that a candle was easier to light than a lamp, I 
took one with a high candlestick, saying to myself that 
this would not be blown out under my very nose. My 
wife, trembling in all her limbs, though my friend’s ad¬ 
venture was unknown to her, put the baby’s cradle at 
the foot of her bed upstairs, taking every precaution for 


192 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


the watching of the cradle and of her bolted door. She 
knew that she could expect no concession from me to the 
“supernatural,” and that the trickster or tricksters, if 
caught, would be brutally done to death. It was, in fact, 
war. 

I had begun to forget completely why I was reading 
a law book, sitting in an easy-chair instead of lying in 
bed, about 1 a.m., when my candle began to wane. The 
wick fell in a little pool of wax and went out. I need 
hardly say that I had closed the shutters, pushed the bolt 
well in, and let my guillotine of a window slide exactly 
down into its grooves. 

As I put out my arm to seize the matches, I saw (this 
happened automatically as soon as the light went out) 
I saw the shutters opening slowly, and the moon intro¬ 
duce into the opening the white cold blade of its sword 
of light. 

With one bound I was at the guillotine and raised it, 
hooked it up, and stretched my arms forward without 
bending my head, warned by the first inexplicable acci¬ 
dent. I pushed the shutters with all my force, but they 
resisted. These shutters seemed to be held by a crowd 
of people. They were both resistant and elastic to the 
touch, as if held by muscles working against my own. I 
was silent, fearing to disturb her who slept up there, but 
I felt bathed in perspiration. I underwent the baptism 
of fear, a first impression of fear which is a sort of name¬ 
less anger, an impotent rage which can only utter itself 
in blasphemies. 

Like my friend, I let go everything and bounded to the 
door of the passage leading into the garden. I opened 
it suddenly. The whole movement took me only five sec¬ 
onds. I found there was no human being behind the 
wooden shutters, no branch of a tree to stop them, no 
string stretched, nothing but the pure night air. I ran 
round the house and came back to the window: It had 
closed itself! I was the plaything of an unknown force! 
I stood for an instant dumbfounded, grinding my teeth 
and swearing. Yet I had to get out of this terrible force, 
a farce well planned, but by whom? Then I called my 


VILLA OF COMEADA 


193 


wife in a voice as calm as I could make it. She came at 
once, fully dressed, to the upper window, thus showing 
that she had not intended to sleep. “Please open, ,, I 
said to her, “like a fool I have got through my window 
and the shutters have got accidentally closed and of course 
the front door is locked. It is silly, but after this little 
night round I believe we can go to sleep on both 
ears! ’’ 

My teeth chattered as I spoke, although it was sum¬ 
mer. She came quickly downstairs and opened, not as yet 
suspecting my anxiety. I went to get my revolver, which 
I had left at my bedside, and I said to my wife, whom I 
held against my side with my left hand: “I have no more 
candle. I shall go up with you to find one. If I shoot 
at random, do not be frightened. There is really nobody. 
Only, you know, if somebody were there, it would be a 
good warning. ,, “No,” she replied, very much fright¬ 
ened, even more by my tone than by my words, “I do not 
understand. Are you frightened also?” “There is no 
cause, I assure you, ’ * said I, trying to laugh. 1 ‘ I am going 
with you, you will give me another candle, for it is be¬ 
cause the moon lights up so badly-” I went rambling 

on. 

As we were going up the stairs, pressed against each 
other, I suddenly felt her getting heavy and pulling me 
back with the weight of two bodies. She started crying 
and struggling: “Francis, help! Somebody has got hold 
of my feet.” 

We had arrived on the small landing lighted by a 
window towards the garden at the back of the house. 

Without turning round—so convinced was I that I should 
not see anybody—I passed my right hand over my left 
shoulder and fired in that direction. The shot rang out 
fearfully in that sonorous house, and my wife, leaning 
across my arm, seemed to be dead; but I had not killed 
the evil thing which pursued me, for I received a violent 
blow on the cheek as if with five small sticks. 

Singularly enough, the blow on the cheek gave me back 
all my energy. Being struck means that one strikes out 
and reacts immediately. I bore my wife from the terrible 



194 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


grip which sought to take her away from me, and by the 
vague light of the window I saw once more that there was 
nobody behind her. We reached our room and I banged the 
door feverishly as if I were crushing something in the 
doorway. My wife, feeling herself saved, and thinking of 
a malefactor because I defended myself with a revolver, 
rushed to the cradle of her child: the cradle was empty . 
Then she fainted away. 

Savagely watching the circle of feeble light which the 
lamp shed around me and the woman on the floor for a 
sign of the something which would no doubt appear there, I 
waited. It was useless to think of defence. Knife, re¬ 
volver, all this became powerless against an enemy who 
could not be seized. 

From afar the servants, having heard the firing, howled 
like dogs at the moon. I know of nothing more demoralising 
than the cries of women in the night. But the soft wailing 
of a baby which seemed to come from under the floor awoke 
me from my moral feebleness. It had to be found, the little 
mite, for I knew from my wife’s fainting fit that it was not 
she who had put it away. 

So I had the courage—it required some courage to go 
up and down stairs in that house—to search the whole 
ground floor, holding the lamp on high. I found the in¬ 
fant, quite naked, all its swaddling-clothes taken off, placed 
on its back in the middle of a marble table, like an object 
of no value abandoned by the redoubtable robber in his 
haste to escape in the light. 

All night long I had to soothe the hysterics of my wife 
and the tears of my infant child. It was only at sunrise 
that everything returned to its natural order, and the 
mother went to sleep with the baby’s lips on her breast. 

I must say that this horrible adventure put me into such 
a state of breakdown that I could no longer face my in¬ 
visible enemy or enemies. This last conjuring trick, this 
baby taken from one storey to another without our being 
able to guess how it passed the staircase—or the walls— 
it could not be explained, could not be tolerated. 

My heart sank before a new fear, that of having to give 
way before having understood. When day broke, I de- 


VILLA OF COMEADA 195 

cided not to yield without at least having informed the 
Portuguese police of what had occurred. 

Here I must claim your attention, my dear Rachildes, for 
you have always heard that these mysterious events only 
happened to one or two persons, more or less trustworthy, 
and that as soon as the police begin to investigate they re¬ 
duced themselves to nothing, as these haunted houses were 
not in the habit of yielding their secrets to the curiosity 
of the representatives of law and order. 

Now in this case of a mad persecution or practical joke, 
which I sought to explain as one demonstrates a theorem 
on the blackboard (the board was black, indeed!), I found 
no other solution but to call upon the Coimbra police to 
investigate these audacious burglars who tried to make 
us leave our house in the middle of the night in order the 
more easily to pillage it. 

They were very incredulous at first, but the notice given 
by both our servants on the day after the events created 
a very impressive situation. They went away like two hens 
frightened by a motorcar, bawling and cackling in every 
key, and adding details which were the more circum¬ 
stantial for their having seen nothing. 

My friend, who had done the first watch under our roof, 
came back with several comrades, and a ghost battue was 
organised with enthusiasm. Among my political enemies 
(I had some already) it was hoped that everything would 
turn to my complete confusion. It was decided, at the first 
sign of danger, to place orderlies behind and in front of the 
doors which locked themselves, and the shutters which 
opened in spite of the most substantial bolts. 

All the phenomena happened in exactly the same way 
as soon as the light was put out. When the lights went up, 
the traces of the criminal or criminals were found, but 
never the shadow of their arms. 

A policeman, stationed in a boxroom with instructions 
to seize a malefactor who was heard to laugh aloud there, 
received such a terrible drubbing that he nearly killed him¬ 
self fighting the walls, and he came out of that dark place 
declaring that he would sooner resign as a defender of the 
peace than start again on that kind of war. 


196 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Boxes of linen, yet unpacked because of our recent ar¬ 
rival, were found emptied on the floor by hands which 
could not be caught in the act. Blows sounded throughout 
the cursed dwelling in the ears of the protectors who had 
come to help us. Cries and jeers smote them without giv¬ 
ing them any idea why they were persecuted. 

There were no cellars in this specially haunted house 
where wires, good or bad conductors of electricity, could 
have been concealed, no thickets in the garden where clever 
disturbers of the peace could have concealed themselves. 
No. It was Mystery taking possession of a very modern 
scene and playing the Drama of Fear without accessories 
or scenery, addressing itself only to the mentality of in¬ 
credulous man, perhaps in order to show him that, what¬ 
ever the times, the unknown forces always remain formi¬ 
dable, and that the humble mortal destined to be their prey 
is particularly guilty if he does not seek instruction regard¬ 
ing his final destiny while he knows nothing, and wants 
to know nothing, of his origins. 

To tell the truth, I was more angry than frightened. 
I could not admit any trickery, but it seemed humiliating 
to turn my back upon this cowardly and dishonest enemy 
who struck in the dark. 

Yet we had to go and leave an uninhabitable spot in the 
night, because of the infant which cried and the mother 
who became more and more nervous. 

Such is the story, such is the history lived through 
by the Portuguese writer, Homem Christo. This 
personal observation deserved on every account to 
be associated with the preceding ones. Perhaps 
it is even more amazing than the haunted castle of 
Calvados. What is the invisible world ? Those who 
deny its existence can only follow one rule, and 
that is to call the narrators accomplished liars. 

Here also we have observed facts. 


CHAPTER VIII 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS. WHAT IS 
THE AURA OF A DWELLING? 

Dv. Nichols and the fated tooth—T he maleficient ceding of 
Oxford—The Cambridge obsession—Pierre Loti’s 
mosque at Rochefort. 

N OT all the manifestations of haunting present 
the same intensity or the same character¬ 
istics. The haunting which I am about to 
relate has the personal interest of being rather 
closely associated with myself. There is, however, 
no highly dramatic element in it, unless it is the 
anxiety inseparable from these sensations. 

Does anything material remain in a dwelling after 
the death of the beings who have inhabited it? Cer¬ 
tain observations would seem to indicate it. There, 
as everywhere, we find illusions, errors, misappre¬ 
hensions, and also trickery. But there are some 
undeniable facts. The following one presents an 
authenticity which leaves no room for doubt, though 
the explanation is no easier than it is in the previous 
cases. 

This little event happened in the night from 
April 26 to 27, 1918, and the next night, at No. 13, 
Rue de la Polle, Cherbourg. The house belongs to 
my friend, Dr. Bonnefoy, then chief medical officer 
of the Marine Hospital. I had stayed there in 
September, 1914, with my wife, my secretary, Mile. 
Renaudot, and our youthful cook, at the invitation 
of Madame Bonnefoy, president of the Red Cross 
and of the Femmes de France, who had begged us 
197 


198 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


to leave Paris on the approach of the barbarian 
armies. After returning to Paris in the following 
December we had gone back to Cherbourg in April, 
1918, on a second invitation from Dr. Bonnefoy, in 
consequence of a new German offensive against 
Paris, and in order to avoid air raids and Berthas. 

During this interval between December, 1914, and 
April, 1918, Mme. Bonnefoy died (October 25, 
1916). 

There had been a profound affection between us. 
She had placed in the house a marble plaque recall¬ 
ing my stay there in 1914. 

Her husband had placed in a room which he re¬ 
garded as a sort of oratory her death-bed, the old 
furniture she loved, her portraits, and her dearest 
mementoes. 

At our return in 1918, this room happened to 
fall to Mile. Renaudot. 

It is in that room that the unexplained noises took 
place—commotions, movements, sounds of steps. 
The witnesses are two persons incapable of being 
influenced by any illusion, and both very sceptical 
although of different mentalities: Mile. Renaudot, 
a lady of high scientific culture; and the cook, in 
conformity with her station, steady and prudent. 

I asked them to write down their impressions at 
once, with the most scrupulous accuracy. They did 
so on May 7. Let them speak for themselves: 

Narrative of Mlle. Renaudot 

We arrived at Cherbourg, M. and Mme. Flammarion, 
myself, and the cook, on Thursday, April 25. Ever since 
Dr. Bonnefoy’s invitation came I had been wondering how 
we should be lodged in that house, where we had shared the 
family life more than three years before with charming 
and most devoted hosts, where we should find ourselves in 
a very different atmosphere, seeing that the doctor had 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 199 


married again. I had not wished to be given the room 
and the bed of the departed lady, my old friend, who had 
shown me so much sympathy, and whom I mourned with 
a profound sorrow. 

It turned out that though I did not get Mme. Suzanne 
Bonnefoy’s room I at all events got her bed, taken from 
the ground floor, where she died, up to a first-floor room 
which had been her room as a girl. It was a great Breton 
bed, very old, of carved wood, and surmounted by a canopy 
hung with tapestry. The whole room was furnished with 
artistic old wooden furniture, bedside table, hat-rack, 
ecclesiastical desk. Opposite the bed was a portrait of 
Mme. Bonnefoy—a photographic enlargement of a striking 
likeness. 

I was much impressed with it. The memory of the past 
came upon me constantly. I saw our friend again, as she 
seemed so happy in her active and harmonious life de¬ 
voted entirely to good deeds, and I figured to myself how 
she must have been on this same bed, which for two days 
and three nights had been her death-bed. 

The first night, April 25 to 26, I did not sleep, thinking 
of her in the past and the present state of her house. I 
was also rather indisposed. 

Next day, April 26 to 27, I promised myself a good 
night. About 11 p.m. I went to sleep and put away my 
old memories. 

At 4 a.m. on the 27th a loud noise awakened me. On 
the left of the bed terrible cracklings were heard in the 
wall, then went on to the table and round the room. Then 
there was a slighter sound, repeated several times, as of a 
person turning in a bed. The wood of my bed also creaked. 
Finally, I heard a noise of a light step gliding along to 
the left of the bed, passing round it and entering the 
drawing-room on the right, where Mme. Bonnefoy had 
been in the habit of listening to her husband playing the 
organ or the piano, he being an excellent musician 

These sounds impressed me so much that my heart nearly 
choked me with its beating, and my jaw became stiff 

In my emotion I got up, lighted a candle, and sat down 
on a basket standing on the landing outside the room. 


200 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


There I tried to account for the noises. They continued 
with still greater force, but nothing was to be seen. 

At 5 a.m., a prey to unreasoned terror and unable to 
hold out, I went up to the cook, Marie Thionnet, who slept 
on the third floor. She came down with me. After her 
arrival we heard nothing more. It may be useful to re¬ 
mark that the cook’s character did not at all harmonise 
with that of Mme. Bonnefoy. 

At 5.45 a.m. the doctor, on the second floor, got up and 
went into his dressing-room. The noises he made on getting 
up and walking about did not in the least resemble those 
I had heard an hour before. 

In the course of the day I sought for an explanation of 
the phenomenon: cats, rats climing along the walls. I ex¬ 
amined the wall to the left of the bed. It was very thick, 
covered outside with slates, smooth, and overlooking a 
yard. It was a bad run for cats or rats, as was the front 
wall on the Rue de la Polle. Besides, the noises were very 
different from those produced by animals. 

On Saturday, April 27, I went to bed at 10.45 p.m., 
disturbed and nervous. 

At 11 p.m. the noises started, as in the morning. I at 
once went upstairs to the cook, in my trepidation. She 
came down and lay on the bed beside me. We left our can¬ 
dles alight. For half an hour the noises continued, with 
loud cracks on the wall on the left. Raps sounded on Mme. 
Bonnefoy’s portrait or behind it, and the raps were so 
loud that we feared it would fall. At the same time steps 
glided through the room. The cook heard all this, too, and 
was much impressed. She is twenty-six years of age. 

At 11.30 p.m. the noises ceased. As these manifesta¬ 
tions were very disagreeable, especially as being due to an 
unknown and incomprehensible cause, I composed myself in 
the course of the next day, and, supposing that the de¬ 
ceased might be associated with them, since it happened 
in her house, I begged her to spare me such painful emotion. 

We remained in the house until Saturday, May 4. Hav¬ 
ing heard nothing more, and having calmed down, I then 
asked the deceased to manifest herself, and to let me know 
in some way what she might desire. 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 201 


But I have not observed anything since then, in spite of 
my wish (mixed with nervousness) to test the phenomena 
and to obtain, if possible, an explanation of this strange 
manifestation. 

(Sg.) Gabrielle Renaudot. 

Cherbourg, 

May 7, 1918. 

The Cook's Account 

On Saturday morning, April 27, 1918, about five o'clock, 
Mile. Renaudot came for me to witness noises in her room. 
I went down, but heard nothing. 

The following night, April 27, a little after eleven, Mile. 
Renaudot came again about the same noises, which had 
returned. I went down with her and heard noises behind 
the bedside table, as if somebody were scratching the wood. 
Then I heard as if somebody glided very quickly over the 
floor from the table to the drawing-room, and also as if 
somebody had struck sharp blows behind the portrait of 
Mme. Bonnefoy. These noises lasted about half an hour. 
I acknowledged that I was much afraid, so that my teeth 
rattled. There were two lighted candles in the room, and we 
were wide awake, talking about the noises aloud and localis¬ 
ing them as they came. 

The following night I went down again at Mile. Renau¬ 
dot's request, as she did not dare to remain alone in the 
room she was so disturbed, and I slept beside her. I heard 
some slight further noises, but was much less afraid. We 
slept very well, and then everything ceased. 

It seemed as if my presence interfered with the noises, 
for they became feebler after I came and then stopped en¬ 
tirely. 

Nevertheless, I heard them only too well. They were 
very impressive and extremely disagreeable to me. 

I also slept in Mme. Bonnefoy's bed with Mile. Renaudot 
on the nights of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; but we 
heard nothing more, fortunately for me, for I should not 
like to pass again through the half-hour of April 27. 

(Sg.) Marie Thionnet. 

Cherbourg, 

May 7, 1918. 


202 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


It is useful to note that Mile. Renaudot, a young 
astronomer of the Juvisy Observatory, a distin¬ 
guished mathematician, at that time Secretary to 
the Council of the Astronomical Society of France, 
and editor of its monthly Bulletin during the war, 
a contributor to several scientific reviews, is ac¬ 
customed to the exact sciences, not at all impres¬ 
sionable, very sceptical of psychic phenomena, and 
most unlikely to be the dupe of any illusion. She 
who never knew fear, who passed entire nights in 
the solitude of astronomical observations under the 
silent dome, who passes alone at midnight through 
the lonely avenues of a park and dark streets, did, 
for the first time in her life, know a terrible fear 
on that night. 

What can be the explanation of this adventure? 
No normal cause can furnish it, neither neighbours, 
nor cats, nor rats, nor mice, nor anything imagin¬ 
able. 

That the deceased lady was in some way associ¬ 
ated with it is extremely probable, if not certain, 
since these events happened in her house, in the 
room of her girlhood, where she lived for twenty 
years, in her personal milieu, near her death-bed; 
and since, in hundreds of cases (which I had col¬ 
lected and compared) the same coincidences are 
found. But we may agree that these noises signify 
nothing, and show a triviality unworthy of a cul¬ 
tured spirit such as we have known in Mme. Bonne- 
foy. 

The essential feature of this manifestation is that 
it filled the two observers with a real sensation of 
horror and anguish. This also happens in corre¬ 
sponding cases, for those who experience them do 
not wish to see them again at any price. They re¬ 
member a practical joke in bad taste, extremely dis¬ 
agreeable and incomprehensible. 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 203 

This penetrating anguish had never been experi¬ 
enced before by either of the observers. 

It was a vulgar and queer manifestation without 
any practical result. 

It is right to say that its continuation would not 
have been desirable, and would have been very had 
for the nervous systems of the two young women. 
Experience shows that the human being is not al¬ 
ways strong enough to suffer with sanity these 
intrusions from another world, whatever their na¬ 
ture may be. 

No explanatory hypothesis seems possible. 

Could we not, without undue audacity, suppose 
that the living leave behind them a certain resid¬ 
uum of force, of vital fluid impregnating the dwell¬ 
ing, which, on effective contact with a sensitive can 
undergo a revitalisation capable of producing these 
strange phenomena? 

“Wherever we have passed, 

Something of us remains.” 

So we are assured by a doctrine proposed by Para¬ 
celsus and by Jacob Bohme. 

A very cultured friend, M. Leon Morel, to whom 
I told this story in 1918, told me in his turn the 
following: 

I remember having myself experienced, seventeen or 
eighteen years ago, a similar sensation in my room at my 
father’s house when I was a young man, a year or two 
after my mother’s death. A terrible noise in a large mir¬ 
rored wardrobe kept me awake for several nights. It was 
certainly not the noise of wood warping, but loud detona¬ 
tions of great violence, like firearms. Although I was at 
the time naively atheistic, yet I received a great shock. I 
naturally refrained from talking to my father about these 
noises, as he would only have chaffed me. The phenomenon 
never repeated itself, but I have since then always had an 


204 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


insurmountable objection to sleeping in that room. My 
mother was very austere, rather prudish, and very pious. 
In her eyes I had the faults of a libertine, which, indeed, 
she did not forgive me even on her death-bed. I have 
often since then wondered whether these manifestations 
were not, according to your hypothesis, the revival of her 
displeasure which in her lifetime impregnated that room 
where I suffered in her presence, both physically and 
morally, for a long time. There we are in the midst of un¬ 
known and mysterious things. 

There is nothing very daring in supposing that indefinite 
effluvia subsist after us. Everybody has observed that for 
many years perfumes remain attached to cut hair, to 
withered flowers, to articles of clothing. Let us also note 
that apparently slight causes can produce great effect. A 
cartridge can fire a formidable discharge of artillery, and 
the rubbing of a match an immense fire. 

These pages were written a few months after the 
curious episode reported above, at Cherbourg 
itself, but in another house with a sea-view, in Sep¬ 
tember, 1918. I often used to sit on the shore, just 
by the incoming waves. Every day the ebb and 
flow advance or withdraw the water before our 
eyes. To-day we know the hours of high water and 
low water, calculated by the moon’s position, and 
we can even determine the weight of water raised 
by the attraction of our satellite, added to that of 
the sun. For the phenomenon of the tides is now 
completely explained. I ask myself, a propos of 
haunted houses, of which we have no explanatory 
scientific theory, what our ancestors can have 
thought of the tides before Newton’s discovery of 
universal attraction. 

Even two or three thousand years ago they had 
observed the connection between the tides and the 
lunar month, so that they necessarily associated 
the moon with them. Yet even Galileo laughed at 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 205 


Kepler for teaching this association. But every¬ 
thing that could then he imagined concerning the 
nature of the moon’s action was inevitably wrong. 
It would he the same as regards all we could now 
conceive towards an explanation of haunted houses. 1 
And before it was found that the moon is the prin¬ 
cipal factor in tides, what fantastic hypotheses were 
current concerning the flow of the seas, each as er¬ 
roneous as the others? Similarly, the phenomena 
which we discuss here are entirely beyond any ex¬ 
planation. 

That effluvia, residual forces, and vital fluids re¬ 
main impregnated in rooms around objects, and 
reveal themselves at the touch of some person who 
reanimates them in some way, is quite conceivable. 
The walls and furniture may preserve the imprint 
of events with which they were associated. Speak 
into a gramophone. So long as the record is pre¬ 
served, the sound of your voice will be reproduced 
every time the gramophone is set in motion, whether 
you be alive or dead. The occult property of which 
I speak generally remains latent, and is only per¬ 
ceived by certain sensitives who, in some cases, de¬ 
scribe the details of the associated circumstances. 
On the other hand, the deceased person may have 
been thinking of her earthly dwelling, of her mem¬ 
ories, her friends, and may have animated the 
effluvia and produced the vibrations. 

But, once more, our present science is not suf¬ 
ficiently advanced to allow us to build up a theory 
which could be considered definite. "We must go on 
observing and recording facts. 

To get back to our episode of Cherbourg, my 
readers remember, perhaps, that Mme. Bonnefoy 
was a convinced spiritualist, and that they met her 


i See, among other things, the amusing talk of Caudebec’s sailor, 
told in my Astronomie Populaire, in the chapter on tides. 



206 HAUNTED HOUSES 

name before. 2 According to what I knew of this 
friend, of her spiritualist and also anticlerical opin¬ 
ions, and of her attachment to her home, it was quite 
natural to presume that she might be the author 
of the manifestation with which we are dealing, and 
that no doubt she would have something to say. In 
order to elucidate the question, I communicated with 
the best spiritualist societies to ask for the evoca¬ 
tion of her spirit. I regret to state that of ten so- 
called clairvoyant mediums questioned all gave re¬ 
plies which had no relation at all to either Mme. 
Bonnefoy, or her husband, or the situation. The 
spirits evoked appeared to be the creatures of some 
self-suggestion, though I had applied to the most 
important spiritualist organisations, who placed 
themselves absolutely at my disposal in this mat¬ 
ter. Not only was no proof of identity given in the 
replies, but they were fantastically astray, as if 
the mediums had imagined whatever came into their 
heads in entire ignorance of the reality. 

Dr. Bonnefoy assured me that he had ardently 
wished to receive even the slightest indication of the 
survival of his wife, but that he could never get 
anything, in spite of the prayers which he addressed 
to her during the first five months of his bereave¬ 
ment before a sort of tabernacle, where, though a 
convinced materialist, he had placed her portrait 
and her dearest souvenirs. He had brought in my 
name, thinking it would have more effect. Only one 
evening he seemed to see a gliding shadow, which 
gave him a feeling of fear never experienced be¬ 
fore, but he at once attributed it to some play of the 
light. 

According to the hypothesis just put forward, 
inanimate matter might have the property of reg¬ 
istering and preserving in a potential state all sorts 


2 Death and Its Mystery, 



CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 


207 


of vibrations and physical, psychical, and vital 
emanations, just as the brain substance has the 
property of registering and preserving in a latent 
state the vibrations of thought. This would imply 
that the faculties of “telesthesia” possessed by the 
subconscious have the property of recovering and 
interpreting these vibrations and emanations, just 
as the memory-faculties of consciousness have the 
property of recovering and evoking the latent vi¬ 
brations of thought. We may remark with Boz- 
zano that the analogy is complete, and that no 
scientific consideration would stand in the way of 
inert matter possessing properties identical with 
those of living substance. In that case we should 
find, apart from the cerebral mechanism of memory, 
another sort of memory, related, but infinitely more 
extensive—cosmic memory. And the properties of 
investigating expansion special to the telesthetic 
faculty of the subconscious would be related to the 
cosmic memory in the same way as the property 
of investigating expansion possessed by normal 
psychic faculties is related to the cerebral memory. 
This implies no contradiction of known physical or 
psycho-physical laws. 

Can certain phenomena of haunting be derived 
from dwellings? Can the walls and furniture of a 
house become impregnated with vibrations and 
present to the sensitives a special aura, as taught 
by “psychometry”? Dr. Luys assured me several 
times that that was possible when I attended his 
experiments at the Charite Hospital, and Professor 
d’Arsonval seems to me to admit the possibility. 
In his book, Supramundane Facts in the Life of the 
Rev . J. B. Ferguson (p. 168), Dr. Nichols reports 
the following occurrence from personal observa¬ 
tion : 3 


3 y. Bozzano, Les Phenom&nes de Hantise, p. 174. 



208 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


A lady of my acquaintance became suddenly very un¬ 
happy by the simple fact of having gone to live in a house 
which was really quite pleasant and convenient, and the 
feeling of moral depression which invaded her attained an 
excessive degree when she went into the best room of the 
house. If she persisted in remaining there she felt an 
irresistible impulse to throw herself out by the window. 
On the other hand, as soon as she went out and got into 
the street, the sentiment of depression with its sombre 
thoughts and impulses towards suicide disappeared en¬ 
tirely, to return at once when she went indoors. Under 
such an obsession the lady had to remove to another house. 

I was informed of the fact, and, desirous of clearing up 
the mystery, I started an enquiry concerning the previous 
inhabitants of the dwelling. It was not long before I 
found that it had been occupied by a gentleman whose 
wife, afflicted with suicidal mania, had thrown herself 
head first from the window of the best room and was killed 
on the spot. Can one conclude from this that there was 
produced a kind of saturation of the aura, capable of 
being transmitted to the next person occupying the same 
room, even to the point of producing in her a repetition of 
the same sufferings and the same impulse towards suicide? 

Now the new tenant was a stranger in the town and knew 
nothing of the people who had preceded him. 

This account of Dr. Nicolas cannot fail to attract 
our attention, in conjunction with all the other simi¬ 
lar observations. 

Here is another case, related by Podmore, and 
which can be read in the Proceedings of the Psychi¬ 
cal Society (iv, p. 154). Mrs. Ellen Wheeler, per¬ 
sonally known to the writer, relates as follows: 

During the summer of 1874 we moved into the dwelling 
which we still occupy (106 High Street, Oxford). We had 
rented the house several years before, but had sublet the 
rooms in question. We chose the room above the carriage 
entrance for our bedroom. The first night we slept in it, 
I awoke with a start at 12.45 a.m. (the quarter was strik- 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 209 

ing from the clock of the church), under the most painful 
impression that something horrible was hidden by the ceil¬ 
ing of the room. I had no clear idea what this might be, 
but the obsession prevented my sleeping, so that after an 
hour’s agitation I decided to awaken my husband and tell 
him of my state of mind. He thought he could dissipate my 
trouble by making me drink a small glass of liqueur, but I 
could not get rid of the strange impression and I could 
not go to sleep again. I felt that the aura of this room 
had become intolerable to me, and I went to the drawing¬ 
room and stayed there till eight o’clock. As soon as I was 
away from the room, every disagreeable impression dis¬ 
appeared. 

The next night I woke up again exactly at 12.45, and for 
several weeks the same sensation came to me, with a per¬ 
sistent insomnia until 5 a.m., and the fixing obsession that 
something horrible was concealed by the ceiling. 

As a consequence of this agitated state of mind and 
insomnia, my health was seriously shaken. This forced me 
to leave the house and go to my brother, who lived at Cam¬ 
bridge. 

While I was there, I was informed that the ceiling of 
our room had fallen and the bed of the room above ours 
had fallen on our bed. I therefore found that the sub¬ 
jective impressions I had experienced were sufficiently justi¬ 
fied, and thought no more about it. But several weeks 
later I was told that the fall of the ceiling had disclosed the 
mummified corpse of a baby, with its neck violently twisted. 
Evidently a new-born baby had been carefully concealed 
there. 

Let us add to this tragic story that the husband 
of the lady who told it testifies to the authenticity 
of the whole narrative, and that Mr. Podmore found 
in the papers of that time a reference to the inci¬ 
dent of the small corpse discovered in the ceiling. 
Outside that room the percipient felt nothing. 

A certain number of observations lead us thus 
to establish some connection between dwellings and 
diverse phenomena of haunting. In her hook, Seen 


210 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


and Unseen, Miss Katherine Bates reports a curi¬ 
ous personal observation communicated by her to 
the English S.P.R., and published in its journal 
(vol. vii, p. 282). Here is the gist of it: 

On May 18, 1896 [she writes], I had gone to Cambridge 
to live at No. 35, Trumpington Street. My friend Miss 
Wales was away, and I had remained alone for the night. 
When she came back next day I told her I had had a horri¬ 
ble night, haunted by persistently repeated dreams con¬ 
cerning a man whom I had not seen or heard of for many 
years, but who at one time had been long and intimately 
linked with my existence. In my dream I saw him beside 
me, reproaching me for not having married him and 
ironically alluding to the fact that, having refused him, 
I had found myself side-tracked in life. Several times I 
had awakened and slept again. But always the same man 
came into my dreams, and he always spoke the same words. 
During a sleepless interval I felt his presence with such 
force that I cried: “ Go away; leave me alone. I have none 
but kindly feelings for you, but you persist in tormenting 
me, and you thus prove that I should have been unhappy 
had I married you. In the name of the Holy Trinity I 
command you to leave me in peace!’’ After that invocation 
it seemed as if the evil influence waned, and I got to sleep 
again, though I only slept restlessly and fitfully. So I 
felt a relief when the landlady’s daughter brought me a 
cup of tea. Twice more, during the same week, I had the 
same dream, and it gave me such anguish that I said to 
Miss Wales: “This room seems haunted by that man, and I 
should like to know why. Should Peterhouse College be 
near by ? I ask you this, because thirty years ago this man 
was educated at a college of that name.” I got an answer 
in the affirmative, and Miss Wales added that the college 
was close by. 

The last time I dreamed of him I thought: “I cannot 
think why he should haunt this room to such an extent; can 
he have lived here?” To enquire for traces of this after 
twenty-eight years seemed impossible, but I asked Miss 
Hardwick how long her mother had kept those lodgings. 


CHERBOURG OBSERVATIONS 211 


“Seventeen years,” she said. “And who had them before 
that?” “A couple who have left the town and are dead 
now, I believe.” “And before them?” While asking this 
I explained that I wished to trace the movements of a 
man who had lived in the neighbourhood when he was a 
student at Peterhouse. Miss Hardwick replied that, before 
the couple in question, the lodgings belonged to a certain 
Mr. Peck, now a chemist in the next street. 

I went to this chemist on the pretext of buying some 
boric acid, and asked him if, by any chance, he had lived 
at 35, Trumpington Street, thirty years ago. He answered 
in the affirmative. I then asked him if he recollected lodg¬ 
ing a student of Peterhouse of such and such a name. 

The chemist replied that he remembered him, and that 
the young man had inhabited his lodging for eighteen 
months. He had kept a clear recollection of it, and proved 
it by showing me a photograph of him taken with a big dog 
called Leo, whom I remembered well; and Mr. Peck also 
remembered that name. I then asked him what room the 
young man occupied, and he said: “The large room over 
the kitchen, adjoining the small sitting-room.” Now I 
sleep in that very room, and use the same sitting-room. 

I declare that before that time I had never set foot in 
Cambridge, and I had no idea of the quarters where the 
young student had passed his college years, or whether he 
was an external or internal student. I only knew that in 
1867 and 1868 he had been at Peterhouse. At that time 
I knew him very slightly, and naturally I was not informed 
concerning his student life. 

(Here follows the testimony of the chemist, Mr. Peck, 
and of the narrator’s friend, Miss Wales.) 

Thus the reality of the influence of the aura on 
the sensation of haunting seems established by in¬ 
dependent and concordant observations. 

We have the same impression in considering what 
happened in Pierre Loti’s Turkish house at Roche¬ 
fort, which to him appeared mysteriously haunted. 
I was never able to obtain anything really detailed 


212 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


on this matter, the sensitive poet having such a hor¬ 
ror of death that one conld not discuss it with him. 
I only knew the fact long afterwards, at a time when 
his faculties were already asleep in a sort of dream, 
and when those manifestations had already been 
going on for several years in his house, amid the 
Oriental souvenirs collected there. 

Pierre Loti died on June 10, 1923. It was in the 
month of February, 1922, when speaking one day 
about these phenomena to the celebrated writer 
Courteline, then, like myself, at Monte Carlo, that 
he told me what he had heard from the author of the 
Pecheurs d’lslande: “Several times Loti had been 
awakened during the night by raps on the door of the 
mosque built by him on the first floor of his house at 
Rochefort, and the same thing happened to several 
friends who had been guests in that house. Pierre 
Loti added that he had himself noticed repeatedly 
on the flooring of the mosque very clear traces 
of children’s feet.” In reporting this to me, 
Courteline assured me that there was no possibility 
of doubting the truth of this. 

Is this the aura of objects ? Or subtle emanations ? 
Or the subconscious action of the Oriental traveller 
himself? Shades awakened? There is something, 
but what? It opens a way into quite an unknown 
world. 


CHAPTER IX 


A GENERAL EXCURSION AMONG 
HAUNTED HOUSES 

M Y first object has been to bring before my 
readers anxious to know the truth, certain 
characteristic types of haunted houses, and 
we have seen passing before us a few finished pic¬ 
tures of these strange manifestations. Such com¬ 
plete pictures are very rare. But less rich and more 
or less partial cases are, on the other hand, very 
frequent. I have collected these by the hundred for 
a long time in view of this work. We shall study a 
few of these, but there is not space enough for a 
large number. 

Isocrates said to the Athenians, in the fifth cen¬ 
tury before our era, 4 ‘ Show on every occasion such 
a respect for truth that a simple word of yours 
carries more conviction than any number of oaths.” 
Let us think and act like Isocrates. 

How can we escape admitting the objective reality 
of certain phenomena of haunted houses after 
reading the preceding chapters and when observa¬ 
tions like the preceding have been made with cer¬ 
tainty? I shall here put in this observation, because 
I believe it is particularly remarkable. Had I 
known it sooner I should have published it in vol. 
iii of Death and Its Mystery with the corresponding 
cases. But it is in its place here, for it shows us 
that phenomena of haunting and material manifesta¬ 
tions of invisible beings may commence at the very 
moment of death, which indeed we know from con¬ 
cordant observations. 


213 


214 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


What is space to a dead or dying person? A man 
is killed by accident, and seventeen miles away his 
mysterious presence is perceived. Among the num¬ 
erous manifestations kindly communicated to me, 
the following is surely one of the most significant, 
all the more because it was scientifically observed 
and perceived by several witnesses as well as three 
dogs. This account was sent to me on July 6, 1922, 
by a learned observer, M. P. Legendre, Professor 
of Literature at the Lycee of Brest. Here it is: 

I have just read your last work, and I consider it my 
duty to send you a personal document. It is what you 
prefer. 

1. The Witness .—The undersigned is Professor of 
Literature at the Lycee of Brest, fifty-eight years of age, 
and in the full enjoyment of his physical and intellectual 
faculties. He once had the honour of making your ac¬ 
quaintance at the Mondays of Fouche 1 in the Rue Soufflot, 
in the company of Roujon, 2 Debled, Bernard, etc. He has 
even collaborated at the dictionary the publication of which 
you organised. 

All this is to prove to you that you have not to do with 
a romancer. 

I have cultivated science with coolness and philosophy 
with calm. I have never been passionately devoted to 
metaphysics, though I have dug into it. That is to prove 
that I do not bring to the critique of facts, of which I be¬ 
lieve myself to be a sufficiently good observer, any precon¬ 
ceived opinion nor any school method. This is to show 
you the absolute independence, of a testimony the interest 
of which is left to your own estimation. 

2. The Facts .—It was in 1883. I was twenty years of 
age. I had just finished my studies at the Sorbonne and 

1 Then astronomer at the Paris Observatory, founder with myself of 
the Societe Astronomique de France; now repetiteur at the Ecole 
Polytechnique and Vice-President of the Astronomical Society. 

2 Then Secretary to the Minister of Public Instruction; since 
elected a Member of the Institute. Died as Perpetual Secretary 
of the Academy of Fine Arts. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


215 


terminated my first year of professorship. I had gone 
to spend my holidays on a quiet estate which my people 
owned near Rennes (commune of Chantepie). The hunt¬ 
ing season was about to start. My father had invited to 
the opening three old friends of his (M. Richelot, retired 
tax-collector; M. Biance, the same; and Dr. Cuisnier) and 
a young cousin of my own age or perhaps a year older. 
All these gentlemen had known each other very well for a 
long time. 

On the Saturday, the day before the opening, we were 
all assembled, except my cousin Robert, at a very simple 
bourgeois dinner, round a table, or at least in the same 
room. We had regretted the lateness of my cousin and 
tried to explain it. The cook kept several dishes hot for 
him, because we thought that whatever caused his delay, he 
would arrive the same evening for the morrow’s opening. 

My father and his old friends talked “finance.’’ Dr. 
Cuisnier and he were facing the glass door leading to the 
garden, the dark green shutters of the door being closed. 
Standing up, also facing that door, I was adjusting my gun. 
Suddenly the three dogs peacefully asleep under the table 
woke up, growled, and advanced towards the door. We 
concluded that there was some animal prowling about near 
the house, and we tried to soothe the dogs. A queer silence 
seemed to fall upon all of us. We remembered that 
singular silence afterwards. 

A minute passed. The dogs, instead of being quiet, 
bounded furiously towards the door, while a very trans¬ 
parent bluish haze, about 5 feet 7 inches high, oscillated 
two or three times between the glass door and its closed 
shutters, remaining there for ten or twelve seconds and 
then dissolving and disappearing. 

“A will-o’-the-wisp ,’ 9 said my father; “that fool of a 
Morel (the gardener) has left some dead carcase near the 
door” (this door was only rarely used; it often remained 
shut in the daytime, as it faced south-west, towards the 
farm belonging to the house, and only some fifty yards 
from its manure heaps). 

I was sceptical, and knowing that Robert was fond of 
fun, I supposed that he had left his trap at the village, 


216 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


about a mile away, had got to the estate without making 
a noise, and had crept through some hole in the hedge; that 
he had then burnt some phosphorus or other chemical prod¬ 
uct previously introduced under the shutters. 

I opened the door and the shutters, went into the gar¬ 
den and called out: “Don’t be a fool, Robert; come and 
eat your soup, or Mama will ... !” No reply! Not 
the slightest sound. The farm dog remained silent, and our 
own dogs still worried a little, but as if “ after the battle. ’ ’ 

We waited for Robert a good hour, talking of every¬ 
thing except apparitions; then, with considerable misgiv¬ 
ings about him, we went to bed. 

Next day at 11 a.m. an express messenger came to tell us 
that Robert had killed himself accidentally at 7.30 p.m. 
the previous evening. 

I draw no conclusion, and leave it to you to comment on 
this fact: That Robert died at 7.30 p.m., and that the 
same evening, seventeen miles away, and in the place where 
he was due, the haze which I mentioned was clearly seen 
by three cool-headed people (and saluted by three dogs). 

This manifestation produced such a deep impression upon 
the witnesses that for a long time afterwards they de¬ 
clared they had never experienced anything like it. 

I only allow myself to insist upon this very special im¬ 
pression, of which I have a very clear recollection. I may 
define it like this: A sort of troubled attraction to the door 
which I obeyed automatically, with the certainty on the one 
hand that Robert was behind the door, and on the other 
hand that he could not be there, for even his hidden ap¬ 
proach was for me almost impossible, knowing the locality 
and having at that time acute hearing. 

I may add that next day it was verified that “this fool 
of a Morel” had consciously scraped his paths, and that 
no carcase was left lying near the door. Besides, the door 
and shutters presented no trace of the combustion of any 
chemical product whatever. 

Those are the observed facts. 

In remembrance of our scientific and literary discussions 
of long ago, I remain, etc., 


(Sg.) P. Legendre. 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


217 


This documentation is precise: A man who dies 
by accident manifests himself seventeen miles away 
to friends who are expecting him, and know nothing 
of his death. That is what we claim to be a reality 
and what we must explain. Evasion is no good. 

How many deaths are thus announced by various 
physical manifestations we have seen by numerous 
examples in chapter ix of vol. ii and chapters iv and 
v of vol. iii, so we need not return to this definitely 
established subject. But I may recall, as a positive 
observation comparable with that of the Brest pro¬ 
fessor, the observation made by the famous Linne 
and his wife, of steps heard by them in the carefully 
closed museum of a friend of the naturalist, whom 
they recognised by his talk, and whom they heard 
with certainty at the very hour he died. Haunting 
phenomena may therefore commence at the very 
hour of death. 

We have seen that unexplained luminosities ac¬ 
companied the manifestation of Chantepie. I have 
received accounts of several incidents of the same 
kind, and among them the following, which has some 
analogy to the last. 

A correspondent, who has begged me, in case I 
publish his letter, to give nothing but his initials 
(M. C. D.> at Nimes), wrote to me on March 27, 
1899: 

One night in 1868 my parents were awakened by a noise 
which they could not explain. At the same time my father 
saw a luminosity traversing the room. It was 12.30 a.m. 
The other people in the house had not heard anything, and 
the investigations made the next morning brought no ex¬ 
planation. 

This strange phenomena made my grandmother say that 
we must have lost a member of our family, which seemed 
to us fanciful and imaginary. Next day a letter announced 


218 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


to us the death of a relative living thirty-seven miles away, 
the death having occurred at the moment when the noise 
was heard and the light seen. 

Chance coincidence is always being invoked. But 
why these associations of ideas if chance alone is 
in question? 

Among the manifestations of this kind which have 
been described to me I shall call the attention of my 
readers to the following, which I should have de¬ 
scribed as an hallucination if it had not been re¬ 
peated under perfect test conditions. I take it from 
a letter sent to me on August 9, 1922: 

After thanking you for all the good you are doing to 
humanity, I must tell you of a singular phenomenon I have 
witnessed. 

We inhabit a feudal castle which is well preserved and 
full of memories. I occupy a large room in it. It has 
several times happened that I was awakened suddenly in 
the middle of the night by a mysterious glow which invaded 
the place, lighted up every object, lasted a few seconds, and 
suddenly disappeared, without my knowing what caused 
it. I have observed it on moonless nights, with hermetically 
closed shutters and without a light anywhere. I do not 
dream it, for I generally sit up in bed to observe the 
phenomenon and to see what happens. 

My mother has also observed it in her room. What can 
be the explanation? 

(Sg.) Fernande Boissier. 

Chateau de Boissieres, 

Par Nages et Soloignes (Gaed). 

These observations, of which I only quote a speci¬ 
men here, prove decisively that these unexplained 
phenomena are real, and present for our study the 
elements of a new science to annex to the so-called 
positive sciences, which have so far marked out 
the boundaries of scientific investigation. 

What diversified observations we have to ex- 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 219 

amine! The study of haunted houses is an immense 
mosaic. 

We have just seen from the communication of 
the Brest professor that the manifestations of 
haunting can follow a death immediately. The 
following observation teaches us the same, for it 
was made at the hour of death, and constitutes an 
immediate haunting. Here is the letter of the ob¬ 
server whom it concerned: 

February 24, 1911. 

Dear Master, 

I have just read your book, L’Inconnu et les Prob- 
lemes Psychiques, which I had not heard of before. 

I regret that I did not know of your enquiry, and was 
not able to contribute to your great study, which is particu¬ 
larly interesting to one who has been concerned with a 
manifestation of this kind. I should have confided my case 
to you. But it is my duty, even now, to submit it to you, 
if only to show the frequency of psychic communications. 

I was married on July 4, 1888. My sister, aged fifteen, 
on the day of my wedding, as she was able to be present 
had been seriously ill, but was better, if not quite recovered, 
at all the festivities. 

On July 6 my wife and I left for our honeymoon, and 
my sister saw us off. 

We therefore went away happy, be it noted, and without 
any fear to trouble us during our journey. 

The letters which we received from our relatives between 
July 6 and July 12 showed no sign whatever of any anxiety 
with regard to my sister. The 12th July (we were then in 
Paris) was, for me and my wife, a delightful day, up to ten 
o’clock at night. We spent the evening at the Chatelet 
Theatre. At ten o’clock I became preoccupied and filled 
with a great sadness. My young wife could not understand 
this sudden change in me; neither could I, for that matter. 
On leaving the theatre I hurried her back to the hotel where 
we were staying—Hotel d’Espagne, cite Bergere. 

Still gloomy, my wife having gone to bed, I went also. I 
put out the candle and remained in bed with my eyes open, 


220 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


silent, puzzled by my own condition. It must then have 
been about one o’clock. 

Suddenly there was a crash, a terrible noise, in the room. 
My companion cried out, alarmed and frightened. I lit 
the candle. The door of the wardrobe was open. We had 
not touched it, and it was empty. I calmed my wife, shut 
the wardrobe door and got back to bed, quite myself again. 

Next morning, on rising, we received a telegram recalling 
us to Marseillan (Herault) ; my sister had died the day be¬ 
fore at ten o’clock. She knew that we were at the Hotel 
d’Espagne. 

Had her last thought been for us, and had she trans¬ 
mitted it to us where we were? We could only receive it 
at the Hotel d’Espagne. 

There is no need for me to assure you of the absolute 
truth of this story. 

I have since had other and very great troubles and 
everything has remained quiet. Those whom I loved and 
who are no more no longer communicate with me. Do they 
see my tears and my suffering ? I could wish they did. 

Believe me, etc., 

Etienne Mimard. 

This manifestation is very remarkable and worthy 
of attention. It is useless to invoke chance coin¬ 
cidences; such an explanation does not seem really 
satisfactory. There are unknown psychical and 
physical forces. Do not let us deny anything, do not 
let us shut our eyes; but let us observe, ascertain, 
discuss. Perhaps we shall find an explanation. 

Why these strange noises accompanying the last 
hour? They seem to us absurd, but they exist none 
the less. Are they produced before the departure 
of the soul or at the very moment? One thinks of 
an electrical disturbance. What is electricity? 
Nobody knows. 

We shall have before us a very great number of 
observations made in all classes of society. 

The following communication was sent to me 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


221 


from Rothau (Alsace) on March 30, 1899, with a 
request to give only the initials if I published it: 

In the course of last year we had staying with us a young 
negress from South Africa. 

About six weeks after she left us for her own country 
the whole family was in the dining-room when we heard 
footsteps ascending the staircase which led to the upper 
storey, enter the room above us without any sound of the 
opening of the door, walk and stop. 

We went up immediately, for these apartments were un¬ 
occupied at the time; we visited all the rooms, but could 
not discover anything. We remarked to each other that if 
our negress had still been with us we should have thought 
it was she who went upstairs. It was exactly her heavy, 
slow and measured step. 

About four weeks after we learnt of the death of this 
poor girl. The date of the death coincided exactly with 
the phenomenon related above. This young negress was 
very fond of us, and in her last moments she spoke only of 
her friends in Alsace. 

Five or six persons have testified to this fact. 

M. G. 

Eothau (Alsace). 

That is a phenomenon of haunting following im¬ 
mediately upon a death, as in the first case described 
in this chapter. 

Not a year passes without my receiving, from one 
country or another, accounts of similar observations. 
The one we have just read is dated 1899. Here is 
one, quite recent, dated 1923, which puts before us 
some singular psychical phenomena produced at the 
time of a death. 

This manifestation took place at Frontignan on 
May 15, 1923, at 1.30 p.m., and was described to 
me by M. Al. Gamier, manager of an important 
petrol factory, and grandfather of the hero of the 
story. The latter had just died, at the age of twenty 


222 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


years and five months, of tubercular meningitis, 
which carried him off in five days. 

This young man (Louis Gamier), who gave great 
promise of a life of intellectual activity, was then 
with his relatives at Sassenage, where his father 
and mother lived. His grandfather was at Frontig- 
nan, where also dwelt the family of his charming 
fiancee, who was very much attached to him whom 
she looked upon as her future husband. They had 
known each other since their earliest childhood. On 
Easter Sunday, April 1, there had been a reunion 
of the two families at a little party, “and we, the 
parents,” writes M. Gamier, “looked smilingly at 
each other, thinking what a perfect couple these two 
would make soon.” 

Alas! six weeks after a sudden illness shattered 
everything. Louis died with the name of his fiancee 
on his lips. But let us listen to the narrator: 

I was getting ready to depart for the funeral of my 
grandchild, when I was told that little Marie had just ar¬ 
rived, all in tears. “Louis died last night at half-past 
eleven,’* she cried, as soon as she saw me, and threw her¬ 
self into my arms. “How do you know that, Marie?” 
“He came to tell us so himself.” And between her sobs 
she told me a disjointed story which I could not at first 
understand, but which was told to me again later by her 
parents, and results in the curious event which forms the 
subject of this account. 

Now on the preceding night, which was therefore the 
night of May 15 to 16, the S. 3 family, composed at this time 
of M. and Mme. S. and Mile. Marie (a second daughter is 
postmistress at Corbie, Somme), went to bed about nine 
o ’clock. 

Mile. Marie’s room is next to that occupied by her 
parents. It contains two beds, each sister having her own. 
That of the couple S. possesses only one bed (S) which is 

8 1 have the whole name before me, but am requested to give 
only the initials. Mr. S. is a factory inspector. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


223 


common to them both, and the head of this bed is against 
the partition which separates the two rooms. A free space 
of a little more than a yard is contrived between the outer 
edge and the wall, so that one can walk round three of its 
sides. Against the wall, with its end in a line with the 
foot of the bed, stands a little chest of drawers (E). On 
a small wooden pedestal on top of this piece of furniture 
stands a little ornamental clock (P) which is wound up 
regularly and keeps good time. Opposite the middle of 



Plan of the Rooms at Frontignan. 


the bed, against the same wall as the chest, stands an arm¬ 
chair (F), leaving an empty space of about 27 inches be¬ 
tween it and the end of the chest of drawers. 

This being stated for the better understanding of what 
follows later, we return to our three people in bed. Mile. 
Marie did not sleep. Greatly distressed, she sobbed con¬ 
vulsively in her bed (M) ; her parents, after having tried 
to console her with gentle words, were growing drowsy, 
when all of a sudden a long, shrill, inarticulate cry, like 
someone being murdered, riveted everyone's attention. 
Mile. Marie cried: “Father, Mother, did you hear?" At 
the same time there was heard the sound of a heavy body 
falling on padded springs which immediately deadened it. 
M. S. at once turned on the electric light switch at the head 
of his bed, and the room was flooded with light. The first 


















224 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


object which caught the eyes of the couple was the clock, 
which the moment before had been ticking on its pedestal, 
and was now placed upside down on the seat of the arm¬ 
chair and had stopped, the hands pointing to 11.30. M. 
S. rose and minutely inspected the three other rooms of the 
dwelling without finding anything abnormal, neither dog 
nor cat, nor a living soul who could have uttered the cry 
heard simultaneously by the whole family. 

Immediately after these psychic and normally inexplica¬ 
ble events, Mile. Marie's sorrow was dispelled and she was 
filled with a certain sense of well-being. She concluded 
from this that her friend's sufferings had ceased at that 
hour. 

To sum up, who uttered that mournful cry? Who 
threw the clock a distance of more than a yard? Who 
stopped it at the hour of the death of my grandchild? A 
mystery, all that. ... We state simply the facts, but the 
causes are beyond us. It is for you, dear Master, to draw 
the conclusions which seem to you most reasonable. 

Let us seek the conclusions together. We shall 
enquire into each occurrence. The psychic manifes¬ 
tation is incontestable, but how does it translate it¬ 
self into material movements ? ‘ ‘ Elecricity, ’ ’ I hear 
someone say. Possibly. But by what process of 
transmission? 

According to my regular method, I asked the S. 
family to describe to me personally the observations 
made by each member. M., Mme., and Mile. S. kindly 
responded to my request in writing, and sent me 
their accounts, which are identical with that of M. 
Gamier. The cry was heard and the movement of 
the little clock was verified by the three witnesses. 

It is our duty to place all sure and integral obser¬ 
vations on record without renouncing our right of a 
thorough examination. 

In November, 1913, a haunted house at Blois made 
a good deal of noise in the Press. There were noises, 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


225 


shouts, and knocks on the wall of a house inhabited 
by the Jarossay family, consisting of father, mother, 
and a girl of ten. An enquiry which I had set on foot 
showed that in all probability there was nothing 
serious in it (Letters 2,495 of February 18,1914, and 
2,510 of March 24). The noises ceased at the in¬ 
tervention of the authorities. The manifestations 
must have had the purpose of attracting public 
sympathy to the occupants. This happened in the 
Granges quarter, not far from the Rue des Gallieres. 

The following occurrence seems to me to deserve 
much more serious attention. 

Some distance from Blois, at Fourgeres-sur- 
Bievre, a modest village of 700 inhabitants, priding 
itself on its old castle, which is classed among his¬ 
torical monuments, certain noises, more extraordi¬ 
nary than the last mentioned, and less suspicious, 
kept the whole population in an uproar from Decem¬ 
ber 27, 1913, onwards. I received an account of 
them from M. Paul Gauthier, a manufacturer and 
former Mayor of Blois, and from M. Bon of Blois, 
who made a special enquiry, and sent me the accounts 
published in the papers. They may be summarised 
as follows: 

The house is occupied by M. Huguet-Prousteau, a Master 
Surveyor, aged about sixty, who lives there with his 
wife, his son-in-law, and his young grandson aged about 
twelve. 

The first occurrence dates from December 27. On that 
night M. Huguet-Prousteau suddenly remembered that he 
had forgotten an important item of correspondence the 
previous night. He therefore got up at 3.30 a.m., and lit 
the fire. Hardly had he entered his study when he heard 
his neighbour chopping wood, which, considering the hour, 
astonished him. 

When the morning came he made some remark about 
it to his neighbour, M. Cellier. To the amazement of both, 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


226 

not only had M. Cellier not split any wood, but he had 
heard the same noise, which he attributed to M. Huguet- 
Prousteau, and he wanted to reproach him for disturbing 
his sleep. 

From that day, every evening and every morning, knocks 
were heard in the parting wall, and the walls shook. Then 
the phenomenon grew and became an infernal row which 
was heard at 200 yards. 

“ If it is a ‘ chap ’ who does it, ’ ’ said M. Huguet-Prousteau, 
at first, “he is well-bred and lets us dine in peace. When 
we dine between six and seven, the noise only commences 
at eight o’clock. When I do not come home till 7.30, the 
noise only starts at nine. ’ ’ 

The surveyor, though unable to explain what happened 
in his house, was not maddened by it, any more than his 
son-in-law or his little grandson. Only his wife was much 
concerned, and wished ardently to see the end of it. 

Let us get to the facts, which I verified myself [writes 
a witness]. About 8 p.m., I was with M. Huguet-Prous¬ 
teau. As, in listening to the story, I gave some slight 
indication of incredulity, the owner of the house said: 
“This is just the hour at which it takes place, as you will 
find yourself. I am quite prepared to think of electric 
phenomenon. In any case, the row was terrific last night, 
Sunday. The whole village is talking about it. The noise 
kept on from 8 to 10 in the evening and from 5.30 to 6 
in the morning. So it should commence about now.” 

Such confidence impressed me, and I expected to witness 
the performance they announced. I was there with the 
whole family. My host filled the glasses and we drank. 

Outside the house a murmur of voices indicated that the 
crowd was assembling. We opened the door and the corri¬ 
dor was quickly filled with sightseers. We took in as many 
as possible, so that they should hear better. 4 

Meanwhile, M. Baranger and I minutely inspected the 
garret and attics of the house, which is very old. I then 
went into the neighbour’s attic, without discovering any¬ 
thing suspicious or suggestive of trickery. 


A mistake and imprudence, since control became difficult. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 227 

But what about it? Did I mean to frighten the spirit? 
Nine o’clock sounded, and nothing happened. 

Outside the crowd passed the time in animated conver¬ 
sation of the sort one hears among the spectators at fire¬ 
works or a rustic merry-making. All the inhabitants of 
Fougeres were there, as well as vintners from the neigh¬ 
bourhood. A mild evening favoured the long waiting. 

I looked at the clock. It was 9.20 p.m. The Huguet- 
Prousteau family was surprised, and I began to chuckle 
to myself. But they persisted in saying, “It will come, 
without fail.” The little boy was told to go to bed, and 
he consented, when suddenly several formidable blows 
shook the partition separating the passage from the room 
where we were. It was 9.25 p.m. I rushed into the passage 
and lighted up the wall with a candle. The blows succeeded 
each other with great force, falling anyhow, up and down, 
right and left, on the partition, which measures 6% feet 
in height and 15 feet in length. 

Then the blows ceased, and were followed by a terrible 
trembling, which shook the wall with a force which ten 
men could not equal. The scene lasted barely five minutes. 
M. Huguet-Prousteau stood there, smiling and phlegmatic. 
“I have known it stronger than that,” he said; “that is 
nothing; you will see presently. ’ ’ 

But it was finished for the day. I took leave of the sur¬ 
veyor, highly interested, but no longer sceptical. 

The eyewitnesses had plenty to say in giving their im¬ 
pressions. In the garret, plaster and mortar had been 
torn from the wall in the presence of the little Huguet- 
Prousteau. I said to this brave youngster: “Then you 
are not afraid?” And he, who is only twelve, opened his 
eyes wide and said: “But, sir, I am with grandpapa!” 

On the Sunday evening M. Lepage-Girault, a daily 
labourer of Fougeres, struck a dozen blows on the wall. 
A dozen blows were struck in answer. Another man struck 
fourteen, which were repeated also. 

Nothing is talked about in the countryside but these 
strange happenings. They wonder what causes them. At 
first they were laughed at, but now nobody knows what 
to think. 


228 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Quite naturally the little boy of twelve was sus¬ 
pected. But it was clear that he did not strike the 
blows himself, and they were often very formidable. 
Let us continue the description: 

M. Prousteau’s house is situated in a common court, 
and adjoins two other houses of the same appearance. 
Behind it is the garden of the presbytery. It is therefore 
easy to watch the house rigorously. 

The noises commenced at the end of December, and 
continued until February. M. Prousteau and his family 
never breathed a word about them, but the neighbours 
whose houses touched M. Prousteau ’s, having become in¬ 
terested in the noises occurring at the same hours, told 
in the village what they had heard. It was like a powder- 
fuse. Every inhabitant wanted to see and hear. People 
came from neighbouring parishes, and the curious con¬ 
stantly surged about the house. 

A decree by Baron de Fougeres, Mayor of Fougeres, 
put a stop to these incessant comings and goings by for¬ 
bidding any person standing within a certain radius of the 
house. 

One evening the noise was so great that it was heard 
distinctly not only in the neighbouring houses, but across 
the road, over 60 yards away. The house was shaken 
from top to bottom, the partitions vibrated violently, the 
doors and windows rattled with singular vehemence. It 
was found necessary to open them for fear of their glass 
being broken. According to reliable witnesses, the noises 
accompanying the vibrations of the house resembled the 
reverberations of distant thunder. On the other hand, the 
curtains of the bed were in constant agitation, as if moved 
by a strong draught, though everything was shut. 5 

Inside the house, several people unconnected with the 
family made some experiments. They struck a definite 
number of blows on the wall. Immediately a similar num¬ 
ber would answer, but with peculiar sonorousness. The 


5 An analogous phenomenon was regularly observed in the ex¬ 
periments with Eusapia Paladino (see TJnknoum Forces of Nature). 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 229 

noises were loud and muffled, and seemed to emanate from 
the whole house. 

One night some determined men went up to the garret. 
They had hardly got there when the noise commenced and 
the house began to tremble. Their lights were nearly ex¬ 
tinguished, and the men hurried down again. 

These extraordinary manifestations, which everybody 
could verify [says M. Bon], made a vivid impression. 
The most ill-disposed are speechless. The presence of elec¬ 
tric batteries in the walls had been suspected. The house 
was searched from top to bottom by electric fitters of the 
Montils factory, but nothing was found. 

The grandson of M. Prousteau, whose bed was shaken 
while he slept in it, was sent to another house, and a child 
of the same age took his place. No manifestation occurred 
during young Prousteau’s absence. 

(Note.— Before coming to Fougeres, the Prousteau fam¬ 
ily inhabited the parish of Sologne. It appears that at 
that time their house was the scene of similar phenomena.) 

A judicial enquiry was made by the Public Prosecutor 
of Blois. He found the same facts and in the same con¬ 
ditions. 

M. Bon added to his letter of February 18, 1914: I have 
known M. Prousteau for some fifteen years. The man has 
always seemed to me of a peaceful nature and incapable 
of indulging in eccentricities to amuse the public. He has 
a good reputation in the district, and his antecedents are 
excellent. I do not see, therefore, why he should place 
himself voluntarily into such a strange situation. 

Here, as in most similar cases, the unknown cause 
producing the phenomena is associated with a young 
human organism. That is not an unusual condition. 

We are entering a world more unknown than was 
America at the time of Christopher Columbus or 
Amerigo Vespucci, a world whose exploration is still 
more complicated than that of the natives of the 
New World, though we need not fear cannibals. 
We must endeavour to study it with all the rigour 


230 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


of the scientific method. Let ns compare the ob¬ 
servations. We have a plethora of choice even after 
eliminating doubtful and adulterated cases. 

A charming lady reader, a woman of the world and 
an enlightened artist, sent me the following in Feb¬ 
ruary, 1920: 

I must tell you, dear Master, that the occurrences hap¬ 
pened on our property of Montmorency in October, 1912. 

My father had been confined to his bed for six months 
with kidney disease and consequent uraemia. We had three 
devoted servants, a cook, a housemaid of twenty-eight, and 
a little help of fourteen years. 

In August a violent storm produced a lightning stroke 
in the kitchen during the servants’ dinner, and made a 
deep impression on the housemaid. 

Our house, built on a height, has a ground floor erected 
on cellars, and two storeys. It is surrounded by a garden. 

Well, towards October or November our little help, a 
degenerate child, daughter of alcoholic parents, and just 
undergoing physical development, became timid and nerv¬ 
ous, and told us fantastic stories. Her face was contorted, 
and her eyes dark-rimmed, in an emaciated face. The 
housemaid, at the same time, seemed to be struggling with 
a thousand imaginary ideas. These two devoured cheap 
novels, telling the most absurd stories. Before long the 
house had a very strange reputation through the tongue 
of the girl. My mother, one of my aunts, and I wished 
to put a stop to this gossip, and especially not to draw 
the attention of our very sick patient to the disordered 
service which reigned in the house. 

“The demon is knocking on the window, Miss; the demon 
is rapping loudly on such and such a room on the second 
floor,’ ’ said the young girl. We could not take this nonsense 
seriously. But one Friday, when my mother and I had 
gone to Paris on business, we found, on returning, our 
good gardener (who is still with us) waiting for us in the 
kitchen, pale and frightened. The little maid had been 
sick several times and the housemaid too. My father’s 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 231 

secretary, who had come for the signature of some docu¬ 
ments, was also nonplussed. 

What had happened ? 

1. As the secretary had gone to take his hat from the 
rack, regular knocks on the front door attracted his atten¬ 
tion, but he had not been able to find anybody. That hap¬ 
pened two or three times. 

2. The drawers of the furniture opened of their own 
accord. 

3. Terrible row in the kitchen, scales swinging, sauce¬ 
pans shifting about on the stove, and the coal drawer, 
containing a hundredweight of the precious fuel, being 
moved on its rollers. 

4. Blows on the window-panes. 

My mother and I were much annoyed at seeing our 
world upset. But we spoke with severity, and everything 
got into order again, which surprised ourselves. 

But in the evening, after dinner, the two maids, green 
with fright, pretended they heard knocks. I did not hear 
them any more than the doctor who nursed my father. 
I took up a position for an hour in the garden to disconcert 
any manoeuvre if there were any, but I discovered nothing. 
I thought it was the hallucination of the two female cow¬ 
ards. But when I came in again I also heard the raps 
very clearly. 

Did my over-excited nerves put me into communication 
with ‘‘waves”? The doctor would say, “Take care, 
Madame, or you will be as mad as the others.” Possibly, 
but I cannot deny hearing. 

Next morning, about eight, the cook came to me in great 
alarm: “I can’t get on with the work, Miss, there are 
knocks upstairs and on the veranda, and everything moves.” 

I went down to make up accounts in the dining-room, 
which has a bay opening on to the veranda, and watched 
the cook at work, while the housemaid was busy on the 
second floor, and I sent the little girl on errands. 

I then saw a strange sight. On the pavement of the 
veranda, a chair began to turn on one foot, and the furni¬ 
ture made cracking noises. Preserving an imperturbable 
calm, I soothed the cook. Going up to the second floor 


232 HAUNTED HOUSES 

I heard two single raps in the room which the housemaid 
was cleaning. 

Finding peace at home impossible, and suspecting a 
“subject” in the young girl, we asked her parents to take 
her back. This was not done without trouble, because my 
father was accused of being the origin of all the trouble. 
The housemaid was also dismissed, and as if by magic the 
house resumed its peacefulness. 

I am quite convinced that the housemaid and the child 
acted unconsciously. I do not know what has become of 
the former. The latter grew up into womanhood and is 
now the mother of a family. 

The poor invalid died on the following 12th of March, 
knowing nothing of the disturbances. We had done our 
best to hide them. 

(Sg.) S. de Bellecour. 6 

Such is the story told by the narrator. I have 
reproduced all the details for our personal instruc¬ 
tion. These unexplained noises, these movements 
without apparent cause, are certain, and are associ¬ 
ated with the presence of the housemaid of twenty- 
eight and especially the girl of fourteen. They do 
not do anything consciously. An unknown force acts 
and makes use of them. Did the dying man exert 
any sort of indeterminate activity? 

Let us consider some other observations made 
with certainty. I offer to my readers those accounts 
by preference which have been sent to me at first 
hand by the witnesses themselves. The following 
narrative is one of the most extraordinary and in¬ 
credible ones. Of several thousand reports I have 
received in a quarter of a century in response to 
enquiries instituted for the elucidation of problems 
usually considered insoluble, this is one of the first. 
Though the letter dates from 1899, it has never yet 


e Name modified. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 233 

been published. It may amaze all who read these 
lines, as it amazed me. It is a case of strange 
sounds, of steps on a flight of stairs, and the forcible 
bursting in of a door, without a visible agent. 

Two thousand years ago Ptolemy said: “There is 
nothing more ridiculous, more stupid, more laugh¬ 
able (navu yeAoioraTov) than the idiotic hypothesis of 
the movement of the earth.” “What folly to sup¬ 
pose that lamps can burn and light up without oil 
and without wicks!” was said to the inventor of 
coal-gas, my fellow-countryman, Philippe Lebon, in 
1804. “It is nonsense to suppose that vehicles could 
move without horses,” they said to Stephenson a 
hundred years ago, before the first locomotive was 
built. “To make portraits without pencils, brushes, 
or paints is absurd,” said the painters to Daguerre 
in 1838, and so on. 

In the present work we have under our eyes cer¬ 
tain unexplained and, at present, incomprehensible 
facts, whose apparent impossibility need no more 
stop us than the anti-scientific paradoxes preceding 
special fields of human knowledge. The following 
observation is as amazing as any which precede it. 
Let us hear the narrator. 

The scene is at Strassburg, 5, Rue du Sanglier. 

It was [says the witness] in February, 1855. I was 
fifteen years old. My widowed mother, my sister, and 
myself lived in that house in the centre of the city, an 
old two-storeyed house, the first floor occupied by a resi¬ 
dent jeweller, an artist with a rare devotion to his work. 
This good man had seven daughters, the eldest being 
twelve at most. We occupied the lodgings on the second 
floor, and above us there were large common garrets, 
reached by a staircase closed by a door on our landing. 

The first-floor jeweller had jewels of great value in his 
possession, and the only precaution he took was to say 
nothing about them to anybody. Nobody could have thought 


234 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


that that modest dwelling often harboured diamond neck¬ 
laces representing a fortune. 

One day the jeweller’s wife told us confidentially that 
for some time she had seemed to hear steps on the stairs, 
going up and down in the night. 

We laughed and told her that her senses were deceiving 
her. But she insisted and returned to the charge, assuring 
us that she did not sleep part of the night on account of 
her small children; that she was certain somebody passed 
on the stairs in the night; that she was afraid of thieves; 
that her husband, on her mentioning it, had only laughed, 
like ourselves; that he carefully shut his door—a fortified 
door—every evening, and slept soundly after doing so. 

By constant repetition the good woman succeeded in 
interesting me. My mother had trained me from early 
youth to overcome all cowardice. I got up at various times 
in the night and searched the stairs from cellar to attic 
without finding anything at all. On the earnest representa¬ 
tions of the jeweller’s wife I, on several occasions, ar¬ 
ranged glasses filled with water on the stairs, but found 
them intact in the morning. Then I thought of another 
expedient. I took a ball of black thread and in the night, 
without a light, I drew threads across the steps of the 
stairs at irregular intervals. I found them all intact in the 
morning , 7 while the woman assured me that she had heard 
more steps on the stairs. 

I became interested and even alarmed. I feared thieves, 
an attempt on the jeweller, or what not. I then got a 
hatchet which I placed on my bed, within reach of my 
arm. I went to bed at ten as usual and sat reading until 
2 a.m., ready to jump up at the slightest noise. But noth¬ 
ing happened. 

The door of my room, the only access to our dwelling, 
was of solid oak at least 2 inches thick, as in the old houses 
of the seventeenth century. It was 4 feet wide and 6 V 2 
feet high. Its frame was of cut stone, with sockets on 
which the enormous hinges of the door pivoted. It was 
opened from the outside by a large, solid, internal lock, 

7 This is most significant, and we know of similar cases. See 
below, Chapter X., the haunting of the Morton family. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


235 


the key of which weighed at least half a pound, and turned 
a square bolt an inch and a quarter thick, with a catch 
in proportion. On the lock itself, over the keyhole, there 
was a sort of spring-hook pressing on the stem of the bolt. 
In the evening, after turning the key in the lock, I used 
to raise the hook, push the bolt, and release the hook, 
whereupon it rested on the key and made a lock which it 
was impossible to open. With such a door and lock one 
could sleep in peace. It was not pretty, but it was solid and 
secure, and in the circumstances I paid particular attention 
to the lock. I insist on this point. 

One evening about 10.30, I had gone to bed after taking 
my habitual precautions in case of an alarm, and I re¬ 
member reading in an old magazine Eugene Sue’s Les 
Mysteres de Paris. I had begun a page commencing with 
the words “The farm whither Rodolphe took Fleur de 
Marie,” when suddenly a terrific shock burst open the 
door, making it rebound against the wall with such force 
that I can still see it trembling on its hinges. My mother 
started up in bed and called out: * ‘ What is the matter ? ’ ’ 
Without answering her, I jumped from my bed, hatchet 
in one hand and candle in the other, and rushed to the 
stairs, where I found all my threads in their places. 

I rushed up, examined every corner, fetched the key out 
of the garret, opened the door, and went upstairs. Noth¬ 
ing! I came down again, went into my room and tried 
to shut the door. Then I found that the lock had remained 
in the “closed” position, as well as the bolt, and that the 
door had been opened all the same, and with what force! 

Only at that moment did I feel a sensation of horror. 
My hair seemed to stand on end. The top of my head 
seemed made of ice. 

I closed the door and went to bed once more, trembling 
in every limb, and unable to take my eyes off the door. 

My mother got up, and I told her what had happened. 
She sighed and said we should soon hear of a misfortune 
in the family. But nothing of the kind happened, either 
to us or the jeweller, and the fact I have carefully reported 
was not marked by any coincidence. 

I was so powerfully impressed that in writing these lines, 


236 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


forty-four hours later, I still feel the horror which seized 
me when I came back to my room and could not shut the 
door. I do not believe in the supernatural, but I could 
never undestand the miracle of the spontaneous and violent 
opening of a solid oaken door, closed as it was with a lock 
more like that of a prison than of a dwelling-house. 

(Sg.) Ernest Frantz. 

BESANgoN, (Letter 10 of my general enquiry.) 

March 26, 1899. 

This story, an old one, as I said before, was sent 
to me with all the care which might have been taken 
by an architect or engineer, with plans of the dwel¬ 
ling, the stairs, etc., which, though I consider it 
superfluous to reproduce them here, I have pre¬ 
served. Yet the story is really fantastic and in¬ 
credible, and twenty years, or even ten years, ago I 
should not have published it, because my readers, 
even those instructed in metapsychic matters, were 
not prepared for it. Such a manifestation appears 
absurd, ridiculous, a senseless farce. Yet we find 
happenings as incredible in the phenomena of light¬ 
ning, the extravagances of which are countless, and 
the effects of which are formidable. It is opportune 
to recall some of them here which have a great re¬ 
semblance to what we have just heard: 

On June 1, 1903, a flash of lightning struck the church 
of Cussy-la-Colonne (Cote d’Or), knocked down the clock- 
tower, broke a clock, and opened a cupboard in the sacristy, 
totally destroying the objects within. In April, 1888, 
lightning demolished the clock-tower of the church of 
Montredon (Tarn) to the height of 10 feet. Several bells, 
together with the great bar of iron which supported them, 
were carried a considerable distance. 

At Liege, in August, 1868, lightning pierced a wall, 
entered a locksmith’s workshop, upset all the tools, pulled 
out a drawer, broke it into a thousand pieces, threw all its 
contents on the floor, broke all the window-panes on the 


AMONG HAUNTED. HOUSES 


237 


staircase, traversed the wall again, entered a hole contain¬ 
ing a rabbit, killed the rabbit, and lost itself in the gar¬ 
den, boring a double furrow several feet long in the 
ground. 

In July, 1896, in the hamlet of Boulens, it entered by 
the chimney, damaging it, threw down the rack after tear¬ 
ing out the socket which held it, and pierced a hole in its 
place. It flung a saucepan with its lid into the middle of 
the floor and tore up several flags in its passage. It 
sprung the latch of the front door, and flung the key into 
a wooden shoe under the sideboard. 

In the middle of August, 1887, the lightning fell upon 
a house in Les Francines near Limoges. It entered the 
room where the master of the house was asleep. He ex¬ 
perienced a terrible shock and found his down quilt pierced 
in several places by perfidious fluid. A chest of drawers 
was broken into a thousand pieces, with all its contents. 
Continuing on its way, the lightning passed into an ad¬ 
joining room, demolishing the door. 

At Niederdorf, canton of Unterwalden (Switzerland), 
the house of Councillor Jailer, showed, among other phe¬ 
nomena, doors violently opened, torn from their hinges, 
and bolts jumping from their catches (Annales, 1895, 
p. 94). 

On April 20, 1807, a lightning discharge struck the 
windmill of Great Morton in Lancashire. A heavy iron 
chain used for hoisting the grain was, if not fused, at least 
considerably softened. In fact, the links, being pulled 
vertically by the weight at the bottom, had closed up and 
welded themselves, so that after the lightning the chain 
had become an iron bar. We might ask how such formid¬ 
able fusion could come about in so short a time, during 
the passage of the current which passes “with lightning 
speed.’’ What magic force gives to the jet of fire from the 
clouds the power of transforming the air into a veritable 
forge, where pounds of metal are volatilised in a thousandth 
of a second? 

On July 26, 1911, at Hericy-sur-Seine, not far from 
Fontainebleau, lightning fell upon a tank containing water 
10 feet deep, and completely dried it up! On the same 


238 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


day, at Bagneux, near Moulins, it transported three carts 
filled with sand for several yards, from the road into a 
ditch, without spilling the contents. But the horses were 
killed and the chains serving as harness had disappeared. 

On October 30, 1922, at Maussane (Bouches-du-Rhone) 
lightning struck the farm of Mont Blanc. Entering by the 
chimney, the lightning passed to the kitchen table, where 
it fused the reservoir of the oil lamp and broke the globe, 
and then tore up the wax tablecloth. After those exploits 
it traversed the ceiling, entered the room of the widow 
Piquet, who was in bed, crumbled up a portion of the wood 
of the bed, and scorched the sheets, without touching the 
woman in the bed, whereas the victims are usually killed 
instantly. 

Another example from my collection. After recount¬ 
ing some curious psychic phenomena, a Nice correspondent, 
Sgr. Torelli, wrote to me (Letter 736) : 

“Last November (1898) on a day I could name if re¬ 
quired, about 2 p.m., after a great thunderstorm lasting 
over half an hour, I went to the upper storey of a villa 
of mine in Monaco and found the room flooded with rain. 
I went to the roof to see what had happened and found a 
row of six flat tiles methodically removed and transported 
16 inches lower down— i.e., two rows below their place, 
but hooked together in line as if placed there by a good 
workman. The tiles surrounding the hole made by the 
displacement of the six had not been disarranged at all.” 

How many more amazing singularities of light¬ 
ning could be quoted here in addition to those I 
have already given (Autour de la Mort, pp. 308- 
311)! Some of them suggest the hypothesis of a 
fourth dimension . To deny the facts reported by 
M. Frantz above would, of course, simplify every¬ 
thing. But it is difficult, because he saw, observed, 
and recorded well. And then his observation is not 
unique; there are hundreds of similar cases. 

I shall repeat once more that, while admitting the 
phenomena, it would be absurd to suppose that sci- 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


239 


ence in its present state can furnish an explanation. 
Yet a dynamical consideration claims our attention. 
Every physicist and mechanician knows the expres¬ 
sion mV 2 , and knows that the quantity of motion 
possessed by a moving body is obtained by multiply¬ 
ing its mass by the square of its speed. A double 
velocity is four times as powerful; a treble velocity, 
nine times; a fourfold velocity, sixteen times; and 
a fivefold velocity twenty-five times as powerful. 
According to this formula, we might obtain any me¬ 
chanical effect we desire by simply raising the 
speed. It is not the bullet that kills, but its speed. 
Throw a bullet at the chest of a person and the shock 
will be hardly felt through his clothing. I remem¬ 
ber having (1866) won a bet after lunch in a shoot¬ 
ing-party by firing through an oak plank with a 
cylindrical bullet of Gray ere cheese, with which I 
had loaded my gun. It was the epilogue to a dis¬ 
cussion of Force and Matter (I told this story 
in my Memoires, p. 353). 

A certain number of the noises and uproars, like 
several freaks of lightning, could no doubt be ex¬ 
plained by an application of this formula. All mod¬ 
ern scientific discoveries encourage us to think that 
matter is of an electrical nature, and that the co¬ 
hesive forces between the particles which give solid 
bodies their rigidity are electric forces. 

But let us not seek an explanation too ardently, 
since nobody knows what matter really consists of. 
A radio-active atom contains a formidable quantity 
of intra-atomic energy, enough to blow up an entire 
town. 

Even when we cannot explain the phenomena, our 
scientific duty is to admit them when they are not 
exactly observed. These more or less strange 
stories, scarcely credible, or rather incredible, are 
not all inventions, impostures, illusions, and errors. 


240 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Here, as everywhere, it is well to look at things with 
eyes free from prejudice. 

The conclusion from all this is that there are in us 
and around us unknown natural forces, and that, in 
spite of its wonderful discoveries, science is only 
the beginning. The invisible world is as real as the 
visible world. 

The phenomena of haunting are extremely varied. 
They are not all open to the same explanation. 
They are attributable to different causes. Some are 
produced by the souls of deceased persons; others 
by invisible beings whose nature remains unknown 
to us; others, again, by human organisms acting 
unconsciously. This last cause is frequent, and 
many have been led to regard it as the sole cause, 
for the (insufficient) reason that there is always 
a youth or a girl associated with the production of 
the phenomena, the Invisible requiring an organic 
human form for this production. 

All the men who have examined for themselves 
how much of these phenomena is true have emerged 
from their study convinced, and have been obliged 
to admit that the hypotheses of hallucination and 
illusion did not suffice to explain the observations. 
This fact has been well known for some time, but 
one affects to ignore it. Who remembers, for in¬ 
stance, that as early as the seventeenth century one 
of the most active Fellows of the Royal Society of 
London, Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680), discussed in 
his book Saducismus Triumphatus a collection of 
psychic facts similar to those we study here, but 
observed in 1661? 8 The Royal Society therefore 
preceded by two hundred years the Paris Academy 
of Sciences in the attention rightly bestowed upon 

8 See Joseph, Glanvill and Psychical Research in the Seventeenth 
Century , by S. Redgrove. London, 1921. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 241 

this subject, and we see its Fellows in the nine¬ 
teenth century—like Moor in 1841, Crookes in 1871, 
and Wallace in 1875—display the same courage and 
traveling the same independent road. Sir William 
Barrett succeeded them with distinction, and so did 
Sir Oliver Lodge. The Academie des Sciences has 
only recently arrived on the scene with Dr. Richet, 
Count A. de Gramont, and d’Arsonval. England 
has preceded France. 9 

Sir William Barrett has expressed his conversion 
in no uncertain terms, which find their proper place 
here: 10 


I thought [writes he] that there, where the observers 
were competent men of unquestioned integrity, such as 
Sir William Crookes and Professor de Morgan, there 
would be no question of fraud, but that there might be il¬ 
lusion like that produced in the first stages of hypnotism. 
My investigations proved to me that the facts completely 
destroyed my theory. 

It was in 1876. An English solicitor, very well known 
and respected, Mr. C., had rented for the summer the 
house of one of my friends, quite near to my own house 
at Kingstown in the county of Dublin. Having made his 
acquaintance I was surprised to learn that phenomena 
appeared to happen at his house. Mr. C. and his people 
were not spiritualists. They were perplexed and rather 
annoyed when the sound of blows and other inexplicable 
noises were frequently heard in the presence of their 
daughter Florrie, a child of ten, intelligent and straight¬ 
forward. At first they thought, quite naturally, that she 
was playing some trick of her own on them, but they were 

9 The English Society for Psychical Research generously puts on 
record the work of sincere and independent researchers, whatever 
their nationality, and I cannot forget that it offered me its presi¬ 
dency in 1923, and published my presidential address of June 26, 
in its Proceedings. I am proud to have succeeded as president 
such savants as Crookes, William James, Bergson, Oliver Lodge, 
Myers, Barrett, Richet, and Sidgwick. 

10 William Barrett, On the Threshold of the Unseen , p. 49. 



242 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


soon convinced that this was impossible. The governess 
complained of hearing knocks in the schoolroom every time 
that Florrie was unoccupied, and the music mistress states 
that loud blows resounded in the piano whenever the child 
played her scales softly. 

Mr. and Mrs. C. willingly allowed me to make a personal 
investigation, and I went to their house the next day after 
breakfast. It was ten o’clock in the morning and the sun 
was shining. Mr. C., Mrs. C., Florrie, and myself sat 
round a large dining-table without a cloth. The French 
windows which gave on to the lawn let in floods of light, 
so that the hands and feet of those present were seen 
perfectly. We soon heard a sort of rubbing, then blows 
on the table and on the backs of our chairs. The hands 
and feet of Florrie were closely watched; they were per¬ 
fectly still at the time when the noises were heard. It 
was as if someone were hammering small nails into the 
floor, and my first thought was that there were carpenters 
on the floor above or in the room underneath, but we 
made sure that there was no one there. The blows be¬ 
came louder when we began a cheerful song, or when there 
was music; they then beat time in a most amusing way 
and changed into a rhythmical scratching, as if a violin 
bow were being rubbed on a piece of wood. I placed my 
ear many times on the exact place from which these sounds 
seemed to come, and I perceived distinctly the rhythmical 
vibration of the table without discovering any tangible or 
visible cause above or below. 

The blows changed their direction sometimes, and were 
heard in the far ends of the room. One day I asked them 
to knock on a small table near me which Florrie was not 
touching. I was obeyed. I then placed my hands one 
above the other underneath the table, and felt quite well 
the light vibration produced by the knocks on the part 
which I was pressing. Whether Florrie and I were alone 
or not made no difference. I sometimes got other people 
to come in while the knocks were going on in order to see 
if my hallucination theory had any foundation, but every¬ 
one heard the noises. 

We repeated the alphabet slowly, and the invisible in- 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 243 

telligence knocked at each letter required to make an an¬ 
swer to the questions asked. We learnt in this way that 
the communicator was a little boy named Walter Hussey. 
Mrs. C. told me later that when she went to say good¬ 
night to her daughter she often heard knocks and found 
Florrie chatting animatedly with her invisible comrade 
by means of this system. I made a note of some of the 
answers obtained, and they were such that Florrie her¬ 
self could have made—merry and unimportant, the in¬ 
visible intelligence corresponding to that of the child, also 
the spelling. 

The sceptic will not fail to say that all this had been 
concocted by a mischievous child to make fun of a pro¬ 
fessor. Let him do so! I will content myself in point¬ 
ing out that, after weeks of thorough investigation, all my 
theories and those of the friends who had joined in the 
enquiry forced us to reject with one accord all hypotheses 
of fraud, illusion, or malobservation. The phenomena 
were inexplicable, except on the supposition of an invis¬ 
ible intelligence or that of the child herself. But the force 
used was much beyond Florrie’s. Afterwards furniture 
was moved. One day, in broad daylight, her parents and 
myself were sitting at the big mahogany table in the din¬ 
ing-room. Twelve persons could easily have been seated 
at it. Our hands were on the table, well in sight, when 
suddenly three feet of the table were lifted sufficiently 
high for me to pass mine under the castors. Anyone who 
tried to do it with all his force could find that even by 
grasping the table, which none of us did, it could not be 
accomplished without much difficulty, even by a clever 
and vigorous man. 

On another occasion we heard raps after we had with¬ 
drawn our hands and had moved away from the table. 
While the hands and feet of all were perfectly visible, 
and nobody touched the table , it started moving sideways 
unequally. It was a heavy, four-legged table about 4 feet 
square. At my request, the two feet nearest to me rose 
up, then the other two, 8 or 10 inches above the ground, 
and the table remained there for several seconds, while 
nobody touched it. I moved back my chair and it ad- 


244 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


vanced towards me (nobody touching it), and finally got 
right in front of my chair, so that I could not leave it. 
When it was under my nose it rose up several times, and 
I could convince myself by touch and sight that it did 
not rest on the ground, and that no human being could 
be directing its movements. Sceptics are at liberty to 
suppose that the table was moved by invisible threads 
worked by an imaginary accomplice, who would have had 
to float in the air without being seen. That was my first 
experience of physical phenomena. Taken with later ones 
and other testimony they left no doubt in my mind. There 
is a hidden intelligence behind these manifestations. This 
is an extraordinary affirmation, which destroys all the 
foundations of materialism. 

I am not so simple as to believe that what I say will im¬ 
press public opinion in any way, or that my testimony 
has more weight than that of any other observers. But 
I hope it will encourage other witnesses to give us the 
proofs they possess, until we have forced our opponents 
to admit either that the phenomena exist or to assert that 
the experimenters lie, trick, or are in a state of blindness 
and thoughtlessness incompatible with any mental state 
other than perfect idiocy. 

Thus speaks Sir William Barrett, F.B.S. These 
psychic forces are also those which act in haunted 
houses. My long experience in the same study has 
led me to an opinion identical with his. All those 
who have wanted to see have seen like ourselves. 11 

The forces in action in these phenomena are quite 
unknown as yet, whatever be their affinity to electric 
forces, for there is evidence of mentality in them: 
mentality of the living and mentality of the dead. 

Lombroso wrote in 1910 (Hypnotisme et Spiri- 


ii These experiences of the learned Mr. Barrett, made in 1876, 
are exactly the same as mine in 1862 (see Unknown Forces , pp. 
65-66). In the same work one may read of those of Gasparin and 
Thury in 1853 and 1854, of the Dialectical Society in 1869, of 
Crookes in 1870, of Wallace, Rochas, etc. Only the ignorant can 
doubt the reality of these phenomena. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


245 


tisme, p. 228): “The phenomena of haunted houses 
bring an important contribution to a problem of the 
posthumous activity of the dead. They would be 
quite analogous to ordinary mediumistic phenom¬ 
ena if they were not more spontaneous than the lat¬ 
ter, often without apparent cause, and almost always 
localised in a house, a room, or in a group of per¬ 
sons. The most frequent phenomena are loud raps, 
frictions, steps, transport of objects, even in locked 
rooms, and, more rarely, apparitions.” 

Another characteristic is their apparent absurdity 
and absence of known object in motor phenomena, 
like bell-ringing, extinction of lights, transportation 
of utensils, of footgear and headgear, etc., into the 
most unexpected places, clothing torn, or sewn to¬ 
gether, etc. We must also note the great violence 
of the noises, the brutal projection of objects with¬ 
out consideration for persons or things, their vul¬ 
gar triviality and sometimes evil intention, fire-rais¬ 
ing, destruction, etc. 

All this may seem trivial and mischievous. But 
if it results in a proof of existence beyond the tomb, 
we must confess that it is neither commonplace nor 
mischievous. Who would not, when he loses a be¬ 
loved being, on asking for any sign of survival, wish 
to see even the raising of a little finger? 

The facts are real and incontestable. The belief 
in haunted houses is so ancient that in every lan¬ 
guage there are words to describe it: spuken in 
German, haunting in English, spiritate or inf estate 
in Italian, hanter in French, without counting nu¬ 
merous local terms. We have also seen that their 
reality is confirmed by numerous legal decisions. 

“Haunted Houses!” The words alone, thrown at 
random into a conversation, are capable of calling 
forth the stupidest ironies and the most unreason¬ 
able anecdotes. On the one hand, a whole category 


246 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


of people see in them only the grossest trickery, 
mystification, or ventriloquism. On the other hand, 
superstitious stories hold sway, and memories in¬ 
crease and lose shape under the influence of imag¬ 
ination and the desire to produce astonishment. 
When a little shudder of mystery thrills through 
the organism of the women, the vainglory of the 
men lets itself loose. At one time everything is de¬ 
nied. But now the most absurd phantasmagoria 
are admitted. Between two such extreme and 
equally inaccurate positions the impartial and at¬ 
tentive observer must choose a middle course. Let 
us continue our general excursion. 

When I started my enquiry concerning these phe¬ 
nomena, one of my readers, a well-balanced lady, 
already known to readers of this book, Mile. Adele 
Vaillant, a member of the Astronomical Society of 
France, wrote to me from Fonquevillers (Pas-de- 
Calais) on July 10, 1900: 

On February 16 and 17, 1881, some singular noises 
were produced in one of the doors of the house which we 
still inhabit. My sister and I were then en pension at Arras, 
and I have under my eyes the letter which my mother, 
now present, wrote on February 28, 1881, to inform us 
of these strange doings. First there were sharp raps struck 
regularly in threes, then shakings, scratchings, grindings 
of the lock, and movements of the key, which was even 
thrown on the ground. I omit all the details for fear of 
wasting your time. I shall only say that there was no 
wind, and that care was taken to ascertain that no animal 
or practical joker was concerned in it. “What can it be, 
do you think ?” was the question asked by my mother of 
my young brothers. “It is the soul of our uncle Edward 
asking for a mass at Fonquevillers, ’ ’ they replied, without 
hesitation. This uncle, an advocate at the Paris Court 
of Appeal, died almost suddenly on February 1, 1881, 
at Arras, on his passage through. He took some interest 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 247 

in Spiritualism, and had expressed a desire to manifest 
himself after his death if he could. 

The morning- after the second day a locksmith mechanic, 
M. Caron, came to us on a job of his craft. He was shown 
the door and the lock, but found everything in order. 
He was told what had happened, and he asked at once: 
‘‘Have you recently lost a member of your family? For 
in my village, at Fampoux, something of the same kind 
occurred, but much louder.’ 7 And he reported the fol¬ 
lowing occurrence he had witnessed: 

An inhabitant of Fampoux had prematurely lost his 
wife, and had promised her to have a number of masses 
said. He had commenced fulfilling his engagement, but, 
distracted by the project of a second marriage, he had 
neglected to continue it. The crockery began to dance 
noisily on his dresser and in his cupboard every night, 
and things did not quiet down until he had entirely ful¬ 
filled his promise to the deceased woman. 

At a somewhat earlier epoch, in 1880, in another house 
at Fonquevillers, some awful noises were also produced 
without a known cause. Several inhabitants of the vil¬ 
lage went there expressly to investigate and try to find 
an explanation. I was told that every evening blows of 
unprecedented violence seemed to shake the blinds. My 
grandfather, who went into the house with another per¬ 
son, heard similar ones inside on the door of the bread- 
oven, and satisfied himself that there was nothing in the 
oven. 

From time to time such an uproar was produced that 
several of the witnesses compared it with a cart of gravel 
emptied suddenly beside them. 

All searches proved fruitless, nothing was discovered. 
These queer phenomena ceased after masses had been 
ordered for the dead of that family, but, as in the other 
cases, that may have been a mere coincidence. 

In a third house of the village, longer ago still, noises 
were heard in the evening resembling those produced by 
throwing large stones at the shutters. When that hap¬ 
pened in the night, all the people in the house woke up 
with a start, much frightened, and thinking that an enemy 


248 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


was in their garden. After rainy nights they looked for 
footprints on the ground, but always in vain. Nothing 
could be discovered. I ask you, dear Master, whether the 
souls of the dead have indeed some connection with these 
inexplicable noises, or whether they are due to an unknown 
natural cause. There is a tradition in the country that 
extraordinary noises, and spontaneous movements of furni¬ 
ture and crockery which sometimes occur in the houses, 
are caused by the souls of the dead anxious to obtain 
prayers, masses, or the execution of promises or wishes. 
What am I to think? 

(Sg.) Adele Vaillant. 

(Letter 923.) 

Here we have at once a religious idea associated 
with these strange noises, that of a soul in distress. 

These requests for masses or prayers might sur¬ 
prise us, but we cannot but admit that they are fre¬ 
quent. There are a dozen examples in Death and Its 
Mystery, vol. iii, among them the case of the picture 
by Van Eyck in the Bruges Museum. Must we look 
for the cause in the mentality of those present? We 
must study everything without prejudice. 

And what about the exorcisms of haunted houses, 
which succeed, but not always (see p. 128)? 

Among the numerous manifestations of haunting 
which I have heard of, I shall pick out the follow¬ 
ing, which is remarkable and well deserved. It was 
sent to me from Buenos Ayres in the following 
letter: 

Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, 
June 20, 1921. 

Dear Master, 

The first two volumes of your work Death and Its 
Mystery have drawn the attention of our public to psychic 
questions, and forced them to ponder the serious problem 
of the other side. 

Permit me to communicate to you a spontaneous and pro¬ 
longed problem of haunting, which, if it is in time, may 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 249 

perhaps find room in your third volume. 12 I have only 
lately heard about it from one of the witnesses, a serious 
and intelligent man whose good faith I can guarantee. 
Up to the present he had not dared to talk about it for 
fear of ridicule. 

The case is that of M. Jose Amadei, an Italian aged 
thirty-seven, who has worked as a carpenter in our Mu¬ 
seum workshops for ten years. 

On his arrival in Italy, in 1903, he went to live with 
his married brother, Amadeo Amadei, who lived with his 
wife, three small children aged five, three, and one year 
respectively, his mother, and a young servant of seven¬ 
teen, in a small three-roomed house at Villa Devoto, a 
suburb of Buenos Ayres. 

He was told of strange phenomena—nocturnal and other 
noises—of which the house had been the scene in the pre¬ 
ceding year, with intervention of the police, who discov¬ 
ered nothing. He did not want to believe it at first, being 
an energetic man not given to superstitious beliefs. But 
he soon had occasion to get first-hand evidence of the 
reality of the mysterious facts, which recommenced with 
greater intensity almost immediately after his arrival. 

It was usually in the night, when everybody was in bed 
and the lights were out. Noises and blows were heard, 
sometimes very violent, on the doors and windows, inside 
the walls, on the tables and chairs. Doors were shaken 
almost to breaking point, as if to open them by force. 
At first Jose Amadei, armed with a revolver, used to in¬ 
vestigate whether this was not the work of a practical 
joker, and watched outside, but without the slightest re¬ 
sult. Sometimes his bedclothes were pulled off, and the 
candle he tried to light was blown out several times. The 
same things occurred in all the rooms. The linen from 
the cupboards was strewn about the floors, and the 
crockery was taken from the dresser, but without break¬ 
ing it! Once, during the day, in one of the rooms which 
had been locked, the three flower vases and the lamp were 
found carefully reversed and arranged in the form of a 
cross. 


12 I had to reserve it for this volume. 



250 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


It was impossible to sleep, life became insufferable in the 
house, and they were thinking of looking for another 
domicile, when somebody remarked that the cradle of the 
year-old baby had always been spared by the unknown 
force which upset all the other furniture. It then oc¬ 
curred to them that it might be the grandfather (father 
of M. Amadei), who was dead twenty-nine years and had 
been very pious, who perhaps wished the child to be bap¬ 
tised. This was done at once, and since then there had 
not been the slightest abnormal manifestation in the house, 
to the great joy of all the family! It had lasted fourteen 
consecutive days. 

I must add that this family had never practised Spirit¬ 
ualism and never heard of it. 

That, M. Flammarion, is the fact I thought it best to 
communicate to you. It would be easy for me to furnish 
further details if required, for M. Amadei is still at the 
Museum and in touch with his people. 

(Sg.) Pedro Seri6 

(Zoologist at the Museum of Buenos Ayres.) 

(Letter 4,549.) 

My enquiries entirely confirmed the reality of the 
facts reported. A letter of August 24, 1921, con¬ 
tains, among other things, the attestation by M. 
Jose Amadei. The observation given above is un¬ 
impeachable. Of course there will be readers (1 
per cent, perhaps) who will imagine that my corre¬ 
spondent is a gay farceur or a simple, credulous 
person, and will remain convinced that it is only a 
case of inventions, romances, illusions, and errors. 
Let them have their way. Without ceasing to re¬ 
spect these impenitent sceptics, I shall only recall 
the Arab proverb: “The dogs bark, the caravan 
passes.” We are of the caravan, on its way to the 
promised land. 

Nevertheless, we must admit that it is all very 
strange and impossible to explain in the present 
state of science. But we may affirm, at the same 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


251 


time, that the phenomena found at Buenos Ayres 
are the same as those described before at the castle 
in Calvados, in Correze, in Auvergne, in England, 
in Haute-Garonne, in Portugal, etc. And let us ad¬ 
mit that to escape being convinced of the reality of 
the facts enumerated in this book we must deny the 
evidence. 

Religious ideas are still associated with those 
manifestations in which we find a reasoning power 
and a purpose. But they are very diverse and 
varied, as we shall see. 

The next story came to me from Havre, on June 
12, 1902: 

I am but a poor workman, without education, and per¬ 
haps I ought not to meddle with these things. But when 
I was about ten I witnessed an occurrence which attracted 
much attention at Manneville-la-Goupil, canton of Goder- 
ville, district of Havre. 

It happened at the farm of Puy-Varin, in the commune 
of Manneville-la-Goupil. Unusual noises appear to have 
been heard there, because, according to what the good 
people of the locality said, the owner of the farm had 
not kept his promises to one of his relatives who died at 
the farm. One evening, therefore, accompanied by my 
grandfather, a medallist of Sainte-Helene, and Pere Votte, 
as I then called him, a brigadier of gendarmery at Goder- 
ville, I went to the farm at Puy-Varin to verify the mar¬ 
vellous things which were said to happen there. 

For two hours nothing happened at the farm. As we 
were about to leave, Pere Votte said to my grandfather: 
“Well, old Torquet, here is a bad bit of humbug to worry 
us about.” Hardly had he said these words when all the 
furniture and crockery in the kitchen began to dance. 
It was like a witches’ Sabbath. My grandfather’s forage 
cap was thrown into the fire and burnt, and I, the little 
boy, was thrown by an unknown force against the front 
door. 

I then heard the angry voice of my good grandfather 


252 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


saying: “You who make all this pother, if you come 
from God, speak; if from the Devil, decamp!” 

These things took place as I have told them, at Manne- 
ville-la-Goupil, and are still remembered by the old 
people. There was no apparatus, no medium, no con¬ 
jurer, but only poor peasants, like myself, who always 
talked about it. These are the facts, which I consider 
it my duty to report to you. I hold myself at your disposal 
for further details if necessary. 

My grandfather was then field-watchman at Manneville- 
la-Goupil. 

(Sg.) Saturnin Tinel. 

(.Letter 1,014.) 

7, RUE LEFEVREVILLE, 

HAVRE. 

On enquiries being made, I found that the narra¬ 
tive conformed with reality. 

Here is another and more recent observation. 

In December, 1922, I learnt from an important 
communication on divers phenomena made to me 
by Mile. Lasserre, a canal owner at La Cape, Port- 
Sainte-Marie (Lot-et-Garonne), that the secular 

girls’ school of- 13 had been the scene of very 

remarkable haunting phenomena. In pursuance of 
the enquiry which I always make for my personal 
instruction, Mile. Lasserre invited me to communi¬ 
cate directly with Mile. X., a retired teacher living 

at A-, who had witnessed the occurrences, as 

well as other teachers. “The uproar was so great,” 

said the narrator, “that the parish priest of - 

was asked to intervene to shed some light on the 
matter.” I wrote to Mile. X., and here is an ex¬ 
tract from the reply she kindly sent me under date 
of January 14, 1923: 


13 I think it right to suppress names, especially as official are 
involved. 






AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


253 


The schoolhouse of -, which I inhabited for sixteen 

years, was (it may be even now) haunted. Every eve¬ 
ning extraordinary noises used to trouble the sleep of 
my assistants, and I heard a good deal of them my¬ 
self. 

Mile. X., now at A-, as Directrice of the licole 

Carnot, yesterday told me of her exciting experiences. 
One night she saw the curtain of her bed shake, and 
then she seemed to see a hand, a groping hand, passing 
over the curtains. Fear seized her. She sat up on her 
bed, the lamp being alight all the time, and she still saw 
the hand, which finally disappeared, though the curtain 
continued to shake violently. 

At other times it seemed to her that her wardrobe was 
being opened. She got up, and saw her bunch of keys 
swinging. 

The room of the assistant teachers was over the class¬ 
rooms. These ladies heard blows as of a ruler on the 
desks. It seemed to them that the writing-tables were 
shifted, and that someone was walking about. But in the 
morning it was found that nothing had stirred. 

One night I heard a formidable noise down in the kitchen. 
It sounded as if a plate-rack had fallen, breaking all the 
crockery, and as if the kettles in the rack were rolling on 
the tiles. When the maid entered my room in the morn¬ 
ing I recommended her to go down to the kitchen at once, 
because the plate-rack had fallen. She came back after 
a few minutes to tell me that nothing had moved. After 
some time, worn out with the uproar, I sent for the priest, 
who blessed the house on a Thursday morning. But the 
row began again soon. It was no use looking round; we 
never found the cause of the mysterious noise. 

It would take much too long to enumerate here all we 
observed, but I must add that the neighbours heard a noise 
in the night as if a cart full of gravel were being dis¬ 
charged in the yard. 

That is the story of one of the observers of these 
curious phenomena, for which we are grateful. 
What strikes us is the triviality of the actions. 




254 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Noises without an explanation—like fhe wood¬ 
splitting at Fougeres—shocks making the walls 
tremble, plaster falling from the walls, blows re¬ 
sponding by number to interrogations, curtains wav¬ 
ing, the noise of furniture falling, all these corre¬ 
spond to no reality. They are subjective and 
objective phenomena, whose theoretical placing is 
difficult. That occult forces are acting is undoubted, 
but what are they? 

In haunted houses and in some fantastic manifes¬ 
tations formidable noises are often heard: sledge¬ 
hammer blows calculated to bring down the par¬ 
titions; the rattling of doors and windows, the fall 
of crockery or glass thrown on the floor and broken 
in pieces; and on examining the result of all the 
commotion we find in general nothing broken, noth¬ 
ing demolished, and nothing displaced. And yet 
an hypothesis of illusion or hallucination is ex¬ 
cluded by the multiplicity of observers. 

In 1907 we had in Paris a “Universal Society of 
Psychic Studies, ’ ’ which was invited to conduct some 
enquiries on the subject of our study. Let us give 
the story of a haunted house on the outskirts of 
Beuvry, a large village of 7,000 inhabitants, five 
miles from Bethune, in the middle of the Black 
Country: 14 

Our trip [wrote M. Chaplain, engineer] was too late 
to enable us to witness the phenomena, which had ceased 
for several days. Yet, in spite of the mistrust of the 
proprietor, we were able to enter the house, question 
the inhabitants, and examine on the furniture the in¬ 
contestable traces of the violence to which it had been 
subjected. 

The first occurrences go back to January 3. M. Sene- 
chal, who has a small grocer’s shop, lives in the house, with 


14 See Annales des Sciences Psychiques, February, 1907. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


255 


a wife, old and completely helpless, on account of a paral¬ 
ysis which has confined her to her chair for several 
years, and a young girl of about fifteen, who acts as a 
servant. 

From January 3 on the furniture of the house started 
on a senseless dance. The chairs flew from one room to 
the other and broke against the tables and walls; vases 
and crockery broke to pieces on the floor. The till of the 
shop was upset, and cases of soap flew over it. Shoes 
walked up the stairs. A dish of meat came out of the 
oven and fell in the bedroom; a water-bottle fell on the 
floor without breaking. It was picked up, but did it again 
and broke. 

All this took place in the daytime and ceased at night¬ 
fall. It always occurred in the room where the young 
servant was, and never in her absence. When the girl 
took a few days’ holiday the house resumed its tranquillity, 
but the phenomena reappeared the moment she returned 
to the house. 

Another peculiarity is that nobody ever saw anything 
moving. One heard the noise behind, and on turning one 
found what had happened. The girl herself never saw 
anything move. 

The Senechal people never observed any special state 
about the girl. She plied her avocations quite normally. 

A few days before our arrival M. Senechal had dis¬ 
missed the servant. Since then nothing has occurred. We 
tried to find the girl, but did not succeed. The Senechal 
people, annoyed at what occurred in their house, abso¬ 
lutely refused to give their servant’s address. 

(Sg.) Paul Chaplain" 
(Engineer), 

Quite naturally the servant was suspected. But 
the reader knows from the examples he has read 
already that she was not responsible. 

Here is the result of an enquiry into another 
‘‘haunted house,” made on the initiative of the same 
society: 


256 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


The regional papers of the Nord having published an 
article concerning a haunted house at Douai, 16 we went to 
the town on Sunday, January 13, to conduct an enquiry. 
The house in question is 19, Rue des Nicoles. It was un¬ 
inhabited for some time, but for some months it had been 
occupied by the D. family, consisting of the father, a post¬ 
man, the mother, five children, and a young servant of 
sixteen or seventeen. 

Here are the occurrences which attracted attention to 
that house. For about a fortnight Mme. D. heard the 
bell ring at the front door several times per day, but found 
nobody waiting to enter. She first thought of a practical 
joke, but soon the bell-ringing increased in frequency and 
intensity, and made a commotion in the house. In front 
of the frightened family, the bell rang violently, while 
the cord and the bell-pull moved in unison. The whole 
quarter assembled, and over three hundred people wit¬ 
nessed the phenomenon. 

The police were called in, but could not find the cause. 
Indeed, at the end of three days, in front of a policeman, 
the bell fell off the wall in a last peal and broke on the 
ground. 

Thus the papers. At Douai we first visited the central 
police station. The facts were corroborated, but public 
opinion felt unable to assign a cause. 

We went to 19, Rue des ficoles, but on our arrival we 
were met by a formal injunction by M. D. to say noth¬ 
ing and not to see anybody. Although we insisted, we 
could obtain no information. During our short interview 
with Mme. D. we caught a glimpse of the famous bell. 
It is a simple bell, with a cord hanging down in front of 
the door. (The broken bell had been replaced.) 

It only remained, therefore, to question the neighbours. 
We spoke to several people who were witnesses by eye or 
ear. All agreed as to the reality and loudness of the phe¬ 
nomenon. The bell not only tinkled, but made prolonged 
ringings. The cord was shaken as if by a hand. 


15 This haunted house of Douai, 1907, must not be confounded 
with that of Fives-Lille in 1865. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


257 


An immediate neighbour of the haunted house gave us 
precise details. Several times this woman heard Mme. D. 
utter cries of terror; each time she rushed to help her 
and found the bell ringing by itself . One day she was 
amazed to see it ring on five different occasions, while the 
cord danced about madly. On another day, standing on 
her own doorstep, she made an allusion to the bell and 
it tinkled at once. This happened several times. “One 
might have thought that it was defying me,” said the 
woman. Her opinion was that of the whole quarter— 
viz., that the servant was bewitched. The priest, who was 
sent for, came to bless the house, and recommended them 
to change the bell. The architect of the house paid a 
professional visit, carefully examined the bell, and made 
sure that it could not he made to ring artificially from 
that or the neighbouring houses. In short, he found out 
nothing. The police organised a watch, but it was all in 
vain. 

One evening another alarm decided Mme. D. to send 
for a locksmith for the morrow. But on that morning 
the final carillon took place which ended in the breaking 
of the bell. The broken bell was replaced, and since 
then there has been no agitation. 

But the unfortunate tenants were no better off. In the 
first place, heavy steps were heard upstairs. Lighted 
lamps went out several times. The servant espied a man 
in the rooms or on the stairs, and these hallucinations 
were frequently renewed. Furniture was shifted. A 
child’s cot was upset, the mattress thrown on the floor, 
and the sheets carefully rolled up and placed in a corner 
of the room. 

That was the situation in the house when we made our 
enquiry. Afterwards we learnt that all had stopped since 
the servant left. 

We owe it to truth to add a curious detail: the girl 
left Mme. D.’s house in the company of her father. It 
appears that this man possesses the reputation of a wizard, 
and that before his departure he made an incantation “to 
drive the evil spirits from the house.” The coincidence 
is worth recording, though the hypothesis of an under- 


258 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


standing between father and daughter for the purpose of 
mystification seems to us rather improbable. 

(Sg.) Dhuique 
(Chemist). 

LILLE, 

February 3, 1907. 

We see that there are always the same trivialities: 
noises, shifting of furniture, and bell-ringing. 16 In 
spite of the father’s reputation for wizardry, we 
need not suppose a connivance with his daughter, 
since the bell was seen to move alone. 

As we have said, the observations of haunted 
houses under the best conditions as to authenticity 
are as numerous as they are varied, and the diffi¬ 
culty is where to stop in the instructive collection 
we are anxious to make. 

The number of documents available for this work 
is considerable. I owe them partly to the numerous 
correspondents who, like myself, are anxious to ar¬ 
rive at the truth, and who have taken the trouble 
to send me their personal observations on the re¬ 
sults of their researches. I wish particularly to 
recognise the laborious and friendly help of M. 
Marius Guillot, of Nice, the learned secretary and 
librarian of the Psychical Eesearch Society of the 
town, who alone has sent me 140 accounts, many of 
them transcribed by himself. Unfortunately, I can 
only quote a small number of these, the documents 
by themselves representing a veritable library. The 
number of these accounts is all the more worthy 


i6 These automatic movements of bells without perceptible cause 
are relatively frequent. My readers may have noticed two in 
L’Inconnu and four in Death and Its Mystery. I have collected 
sixty-eight examples. One of the most interesting concerns the 
death-bed of Alfred de Musset, and was told me by his governess, 
Adele Colin. The subject is worthy of a special chapter, but space 
is lacking. We are too rich! 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


259 


of attention—eliminating illusions, errors, and prac¬ 
tical jokes—because we must take into account the 
average mentality of human beings, their mental 
slavery and cowardice. 

Let us say again that we have a plethora of choice 
for the proof of the phenomena of haunting. Here 
is another example. 

Par is-Journal published on April 16, 1910, a let¬ 
ter sent from Saint-Nicolas-du-Port, near Nancy, 
of which the following is an extract: 

The servant of the present proprietor of the Parisian 
Bazaar, an affable village girl of eighteen summers, named 
Germaine Maire, was washing in a yard behind the house; 
a chunk of bread fell at her feet. 

On the following Tuesday an even more expressive man¬ 
ifestation occurred as she was doing the weekly washing. 
A long nail came whistling down, transfixed the left sleeve 
of her gown and planted itself in the middle of her 
apron. 

Rebellious against superstition, Germaine suspected a 
practical joke of neighbours. The hour of dinner had 
sounded. She went down to the cellar and brought up 
the usual bottle of wine. An enormous pebble broke it 
in her hand. 

This time the joke went beyond bounds. Germaine 
called out. A rattle of hardware responded and a window- 
pane fell in small pieces at her feet. The most diverse 
missiles fell on the wall: stones, nails, bits of wood, clamps, 
etc. 

Two days passed, during which the young servant went 
as little as possible into the accursed yard. She tried 
to do her work in the neighbouring court, but a new hail¬ 
storm saluted her first appearance. Nails, screw-rings, and 
stones this time fell on the windows, breaking them into 
fragments. 

From this day, Friday, March 25, the bombardment in¬ 
creased every evening with amazing punctuality, until it 
fell even into the shop. 


260 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


A carpenter, M. Fournie, was trying on a cap, when 
a long nail transfixed it in his hand. The only thing was 
to call in the police. 

M. Michelet, the local Commissary, came to investigate. 
He thought he discovered the point whence the mysterious 
nail came. His report quite simply accused the young 
lady herself, and he even induced her to confess. 

Here we have one of the picturesque examples of 
the errors so often committed in the study of these 
subjects. It is not a rare thing for a medium to 
make a surreptitious and more or less intelligent 
addition to her real faculties. This addition does 
not destroy the reality of those faculties. I have 
personally verified this in the case of Eusapia, of 
Mile. Huet, etc., as expounded in Les Forces Natu- 
relles Inconnues. 

The Nancy Psychical Research Society published 
on this point an excellent appreciation by Dr. 
Boucher, which brings this story of Saint-Nicolas- 
du-Port to a focus: 

What struck me at once [he writes] was the form pre¬ 
sented by the passage of missiles through certain window- 
panes and through screens placed in position by the Com¬ 
missary. The hole was clean, nearly round, and hardly 
starred at the edges, almost without cracks, thus indicat¬ 
ing a force acting with extreme power. 

Thus, two large nails were still fixed in a pierced pane, 
and bits of glass were deeply embedded in a wall. 

To explain the facts on ordinary lines it was necessary 
to assume the intervention of special instruments such as 
slings, airguns, cross-bows, etc., used as means of pro¬ 
jection, and these various hypotheses had, needless to say, 
been envisaged by the competent authority. 

But they had to be discarded at once, because they 
would not hold. In fact, screw-rings and stones the size 
of a fist are not projected with airguns or crossbows, and 
slings could not have projected nails with their point in 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


261 


front all along their trajectory. Besides, none of these 
instruments were found in the house, in spite of a care¬ 
ful search. 

After examining the damage and appreciating the force 
with which the objects were thrown, a force infinitely su¬ 
perior to that possessed by human beings, I examined the 
different inhabitants of the house. 

It did not take me long to discover the unwilling inter¬ 
mediary of these phenomena. It was the servant, a girl 
about twenty, who showed all the symptoms of lack of 
nervous balance required to make an excellent medium. 
Extraordinarily impressionable, it often had happened 
since her childhood that she suddenly stopped and re¬ 
mained as if hypnotised, hearing and seeing nothing, so 
that it was necessary to sprinkle her with water to make 
her normal again. 

Thus I could, without hesitation, indicate to the Com¬ 
missary and to her employers the servant as the irrespon¬ 
sible and unconscious author of the damage done, against 
the denials of them all, because the former had fixed his 
suspicions on a well-conducted neighbour, and the latter, 
pleased with the services of their little servant girl, would 
not have it that she was responsible for such things. 

Still the magistrate was probably impressed by the clear¬ 
ness of my opinions, for after my departure he put. the 
girl under a state of arrest. 

She immediately confessed that she had thrown some 
stones at the windows. But she indignantly denied hav¬ 
ing broken more than two panes, and said that, as regarded 
the rest, things had happened as she had always main¬ 
tained, that she had seen various objects violently thrown 
without ever finding whence that peculiar rain came. 

Naturally this last part of her declaration was not ad¬ 
mitted, and for the sake of everybody’s peace, the servant 
was considered the sole conscious and responsible author 
of the damage. 

Dr. Boucher is absolutely in the right. These 
erroneous reports condemning irresponsible agents 
are due to the psychic ignorance of the judges. 


262 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


A haunted farm in Brittany, at Pleiber-Christ 
(Finistere), canton of Saint-Thegonnec, arrondisse- 
ment of Morlaix, attracted much attention in 1909. 
We may read with curiosity an article about it in 
Le Matin on March 1, 1909, which is reproduced 
in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques. This 
Breton haunted house is a type of its kind, the mad 
woman of the house having grafted imaginary 
visions on the psychic background which we are 
studying. 

This episode took place in 1909. Four years 
later, in 1913, simliar happenings in the same de- 
partement, arrondissement, and canton, but on an¬ 
other farm, situated in the commune of Plouniour- 
Menez, produced a stir among the people. La Vie 
Mysterieuse of April 10, 1913, published under the 
signature of M. Jean Mettois, who passed a day 
and a night at the farm, a long report, from which 
I extract the following: 

In the farmyard, as we entered it, the fowls were peck¬ 
ing away quickly, indifferent to the tragedy of the sur¬ 
roundings, and horses greeted us with neighings. Every¬ 
thing breathed calm and peace. The motor-horn sounded 
several times and the car snorted, but nothing stirred. 
It seemed as if we were not in the Devil’s Farm, but in 
that of the Sleeping Beauty. Our noise did not trouble 
man or beast. 

We knocked at the door of the living-house, but got 
no answer. We entered the classic room of every Breton 
farm, with its great chimney and pot-rack, its closed beds, 
its immense table, filling up nearly all the space. At 
this table was seated a woman of about fifty, her head 
in her hands. Our entry seemed to rouse her from a 
dream, and she said in Breton, “Good-day.” We were in 
the presence of the farmer woman. 

My friend, who luckily speaks Breton like a veritable 
Celt, explained the cause of our visit to the good woman. 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 263 

We wished to have some particulars of the phenomena in 
her house. 

1 ‘God be praised if you can stop them,” she replied. 
“Have you the power? Are you good sorcerers?” 

The farmer woman credited us with a power we do not 
possess. But in order to obtain precise information we 
told her, with the aplomb known only to reporters, that 
we might possibly be strong enough to destroy the mis^ 
creant. 

1 * Tell us what happens. ’’ 

“Ah, Monsieur, our horses and beasts die, our oats melt 
away, our corn is eaten. If you slept in the farm for a 
single night, you might die of fright. Every night there 
is an uproar which does not give us a minute’s sleep. 
Look, there (the woman points to the chimney) stones 
fall one by one with a terrible clatter. It sounds as if 
thunder broke in the chimney. About midnight we seem 
to see white forms trailing burdens on the ground, the 
locked doors open of themselves, the horses get loose and 
run wildly about the yard, the cows low with fright. It 
is enough to drive one mad.” And at the remembrance 
of what she had to undergo every evening, the unfortunate 
farmer’s wife went pale, her eyes contracted and a light 
of terror gleamed in them. 

The visitor conversed with the farmer’s wife, the 
farmer, and his son, and eventually comprehended 
through their Breton idiom, with its “kers” and 
“brosks,” that the trouble concerns a field hired 
from the priest, and for which they pay a tax to 
the State after the- separation, that the soul of the 
late owner is not happy, that promised masses have 
not been said, that phantoms wander through all 
the rooms, etc. 

Everywhere [says the narrator] I find superstition, 
a belief in the ancient practices of witchcraft. Not a 
plausible explanation conforming to our psychical theories 
finds any place in the explanations advanced by the people 
I converse with. Two or three peasants speak enough 


264 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


French to make themselves understood, and in their mouths 
the word “devil” recurs several times. They have no 
doubt about it. All these manifestations, whether due 
to deceased relatives or to genii of the locality, are “works 
of the Devil.” 

I am invited to supper: cabbage, a chunk of pork, rab¬ 
bit with garlic, red plums, and green cider. At 8 p.m. 
the mother says the prayer, in Latin this time—Latin in 
which, comformably with Papal instructions, the us (oos) 
replaces the French us —and I am given a mattress and a 
pillow, which had been prepared for me, and a corner 
in the room. Then everyone disappears in the closed beds 
to prepare—if possible—for sleep. 

In the room an oil night-light burns. Nobody sleeps, 
and the farmer says to me a word in Breton which I 
naturally do not understand. 

I stretch myself on my mattress, and upon my word 
I go to sleep very soon, in spite of the hardness of my 
couch, the mattress being laid on beaten earth. 

Suddenly I wake up, and my hosts start moaning. Then 
I hear furious blows, as if somebody armed with a bat¬ 
tering-ram were trying to force the door. I get up. It is 
on the side of the fireplace that the noise is heard. And 
it really seems as if somebody were trying to break the 
chimney. I go out, and finding a ladder in the yard, I 
place it against the wall so as to discover any play of a 
practical joker. Nothing! I grip the chimney on the roof 
and look round upon the scene. There is absolute quiet 
but for the blows shaking the wall. 

It is 2 a.m. I go back to the living-room. The farmer 
and his mother are sitting on their beds, still moaning. 

Until 2.22 a.m. exactly, the blows succeed each other 
at regular intervals. Then they stop suddenly, and are not 
heard again during the night. 

That is what I saw, or heard, rather, for I saw one of the 
phantoms which are said to pass through the room every 
night to commit sundry misdeeds. But what I have heard 
is disturbing enough to enable one to credit M. Croguen- 
nec’s assertions, and to believe that other and more terrible 
manifestations may have occurred. 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 265 

I do not wish to draw any conclusion. It is the business 
of those who are better instructed concerning- these mani¬ 
festations to say what they think of my story, which has 
nothing to recommend it but its absolute sincerity. 

(Sg.) Jean Mettois. 

The hypothesis of collective hallucination which 
first occurs to our minds is quite inapplicable here. 

The manifestations, let me repeat, present the 
most varied aspects in their strange triviality. Let 
us consider the following story, communicated to me 
in September, 1920, from the Departement of Indre- 
et-Loire. It recalls from the very first lines the 
phantasmagoria of the jeweller’s house at Stras¬ 
bourg, reported above, but differs in appearing to 
have a definite object. (In the next chapter we 
shall have to make a classification of character¬ 
istics.) Here is the text of this special case of 
haunting: 

The occurrences I am about to report took place in 

1865. 

My father was a republican, an atheist, and a free¬ 
thinker. I was still a child, and we lived in a neat and 
quasi-elegant little house in the commune of Mosnes, near 
Amboise (Indre-et-Loire). My mother kept a haber¬ 
dasher’s shop and my father was a farrier. Of robust 
health, a critic, and a great talker, he chaffed the religious 
people of every sort, as well as those—still numerous in 
the country—who believe in sorcery, the miracles of the 
saints, and fortune-tellers. 

One day, or, rather, one night, in which my father slept 
the profound sleep of those who hammer iron from dawn 
to dusk, he was awakened by an unusual noise on the 
stairs. It seemed to him that a ball descended step by 
step, with great regularity, the stairs of the two storeys 
of the house. 17 At that time we had a working farrier 
of the name of Angevin. At that time, when guilds were 


17 This inexplicable but incontestable noise is not rare. 



266 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


flourishing, every workman provided himself with the 
name of his province or native town. At the first sound 
of this noise my father ran up the stairs and inspected 
the garret. Having found nothing, he came down and 
went to bed again. As the noise returned in great force, 
he dressed and went to knock at the door of his work¬ 
man, who slept on the first floor. “Angevin, are you 
asleep?” “No, master. The infernal noise in the house 
annoys me. I have barricaded my door and am waiting 
for it to finish.” “Put on your clothes, you coward, and 
come up to the garret with me.” “I have been, master, 
and saw nothing.” “Let us go again, together.” Having 
found nothing, the two men looked at each other, alarmed 
and out of countenance. 

“What can be making that noise, Angevin?” “I don’t 
know, master” (his teeth were chattering). “Neither do 
I. Let us return to bed.” 

The noise only stopped at 3 a.m. That day the smithy 
was hard at work earlier than usual. Long before dawn 
the workshop resounded with the noise of hammers fall¬ 
ing on ringing iron, and the astonished neighbours said: 
“The farrier is early to-day.” Next night the noise 
started afresh, and it was impossible to discover the cause. 
The free-thinker was no longer so assured. As regards 
Angevin, he was terrified. On the fourth day, in the 
morning, he accosted my father, his bag in his hand and 
his bundle on his shoulder. “Master,” he said, “I am 
going. If I remained here another day I should go mad. 
If there was somebody to fight, even—but there is noth¬ 
ing, nobody. I am going at once, master.” 

After having drained a bottle of white wine as a leave- 
taking, they shook hands and parted. Angevin was sad 
and disconcerted, and my father sombre and quiet. “It 
is the first time I have shirked, master.” 

Those were Angevin’s last words. My father followed 
him with his eyes on the road leading from Mosnes to 
Amboise until he disappeared from view in the long ave¬ 
nue of poplars which skirt the road. 

But the commotion went from bad to worse in the 
house. The invisible authors of the strange noises grew 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


267 


daily more audacious and enterprising. They took pos¬ 
session of the room where my parents slept, the furniture 
cracked, the crockery danced, and they were rocked in 
their bed. “My shirt was often wet,” said my father, 
in telling this truthful story, and he accompanied his nar¬ 
rative with the oaths usual among men of his occupation. 

What was he to do with his secret? Should he con¬ 
tinue to chaff those who believe in soothsayers and burn 
candles in the chapels of the Virgin and the Saints? 

“Above all, don’t tell this to anyone,” he said to my 
mother, “or they will laugh at me.” 

Every month there was a fair at Amboise. He went 
there to distract himself. He found friends from the 
neighbouring country, with whom he breakfasted. What 
he concealed from his neighbours with the greatest care 
for fear of being chaffed he freely confided to strangers. 
At the meal everybody recounted a story, which might be 
more or less questionable. He would then tell his own 
rather eerie tale and would feel relieved. Everybody 
laughed and was ready to chaff and inundate the narrator 
with ridicule. Roars of laughter, difficult to restrain, were 
breaking out, when one of the blacksmiths began to speak 
with peculiar solemnity: 

“There is no occasion to laugh, friends, about what our 
comrade Bourdain has just said. It is more serious than 
you think. Nobody here knows what this is. I do, and 
am going to tell you. My old friend, there are ghosts 
in your house, and it is they who make the noise you hear. 
Yes; they are ghosts, or spirits of the dead. They exist, 
and what will surprise you more is that means have been 
found of communicating with them.” 

He then gave a lecture on spiritism which caught my 
father’s attention. He had the curiosity to be present 
at experiments made in a neighbouring house. Gradually 
he became convinced and spoke to his wife. 

“But you told me that that was all nonsense, and that 
there were no ghosts. The priests say the same.” 

“The priests know nothing about it. Ghosts exist. I 
believe in them now, but there is neither heaven nor hell, 
only it appears that there is a God. I am not quite sure 


268 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


of that yet, but, as it has been explained to me, it no 
longer seems unreasonable, and I understand something 
about it.” 

In the spiritualist seances he was told concerning the 
noises in our house that the invisible world was at present 
making great efforts to attract the attention of human 
beings to other-world questions, and that spirits exercised 
some ingenuity in producing effects proving survival, that 
our case was not an isolated one, and that the choice made 
of our house was made with the object of leading my 
father—and especially myself, who was then twelve years 
old—to the knowledge of spiritualistic truth. 

We were assured that the object had been gained and 
that the noisy manifestations would soon cease completely. 
As a matter of fact, the noises diminished in force and 
soon ceased altogether. I remember that we were told 
at a seance: “The considerable forces required for the 
production of the remarkable effects intended for you are 
now dissipated, and you will now be left in peace.” 

Well, it seemed to me that when my father had to be 
content with raps and movements observed in groups, 
and phenomena among which it is sometimes difficult to 
say what comes from Beyond, and what must be attributed 
to suggestion or auto-suggestion, he sometimes regretted 
the cessation of the infernal noise which raged at the be¬ 
ginning of the adventure, and which had given him and my 
mother so many frights. He had become interested in it. 

(Sg.) Edmond Bourdain. 

This curious and true narrative is here repro¬ 
duced without alteration of any kind. 

It is difficult not to see in these queer manifesta¬ 
tions the action of an invisible intelligence. Was 
there really an intention connected with spiritual¬ 
ism? That is another question. 

We have before us so great a number of mani¬ 
festations that it is impossible to recount them all. 
But we cannot pass over the haunted house of Val- 
ance-en-Brie, which roused so many echoes in 1896. 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


269 


My much-lamented friend, Dr. Encausse (“Pa- 
pus”), who for over twenty years made a special 
study of magic, the cabbala, and witchcraft, sent me 
a remarkable report on this case, which was no less 
surprising and certain than the preceding cases. 
Here is his letter, abridged: 

My Dear Master, 

The phenomena of Yalence-en-Brie are very in¬ 
teresting to occultists. In this village of 700 inhabitants, 
a house, up to that time peaceful, in which live two maid¬ 
servants, an invalid lady and two children, is the scene 
of disturbing occurrences. It belongs to M. Lebegue. 
Mme. Lebegue senior is in bed worn out with excitement. 

1. First of all, a gruff voice, very loud and uttering 
coarse abuse, was heard by a young maid-servant in the 
cellar. This voice made such an uproar that a dozen 
neighbours came in and confirmed the fact. 

2. The following days, “the voice” continued to be 
heard, but spread itself over the house to such an extent 
that a week after the commencement of the phenomenon 
the voice could be heard not only in the cellar, but even 
in the vestibule, at the front door, in the kitchen, and in 
all the rooms of the first floor. 

The voice seems to come from the ground, but the tone 
is so high and it breaks out in so many different places 
that any trickery seems impossible. 

3. Some enormous planks, as well as a cask, were on 
three occasions moved from one end of the cellar to the 
other, furniture was turned upside down in the unoccu¬ 
pied room and things upset more or less everywhere. 

4. And to crown all, from the fourteenth day of the 
persecution, the window-panes flew into pieces, in broad 
daylight at four o’clock in the afternoon, and under the 
very eyes of the bewildered tenants. 

Things reached such a pitch that a formal complaint 
was made to the authorities by M. Lebegue. 


270 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


These occurrences happened for the most part when the 
master of the house was in Paris. The latter could there¬ 
fore not have had anything to do with them. 

In the evening the two maids left the house, and the 
things happened exactly as if they were present. It is 
sufficient to say that they are not to be reckoned with 
either in this affair. 

Finally, the children were sent away, successively and 
separately, and the phenomena continued. 

Then the sick lady herself was taken away to another 
house, and the phenomena followed her there. The bed 
was pushed about and almost turned upside down. More 
than fifty creditable witnesses are certain of the facts and 
have testified in the courts of justice. 

What sort of phenomena have we to do with ? 

Is it some ill-natured practical joke, as it so often is? 
Is it a domestic trying to make fun of a whole village by 
imitating ghost stories? 

I do not think so, and here are my reasons: 

Phenomena due to fraud are generally produced at 
night, and always in the same place. Furthermore, they 
cease when the trickster is removed. In this case they 
happened in the daytime as well as at night, and continued 
in the absence of all the members of the family. 

It is therefore necessary to suppose the complicity of 
several persons. That, again, only accounts for some of 
the clumsy physical phenomena, but not for the voice 
and its instantaneous changes of direction. 

Further, a mirror was broken in such a way that it was 
impossible to reproduce it artificially. In fact, this mirror 
showed a very clean circular hole with a convexity be¬ 
tween the wood and the hole, which indicated that the hole 
was made from within outwards, as in the case of an elec¬ 
tric discharge. 

Artless people who profess to explain everything have 
not failed to say: “There was a ventriloquist hidden some¬ 
where/ 9 Now, one only needs to have studied ventrilo¬ 
quism to eliminate this idea. It is impossible to produce 
effects of this kind from the bottom of the cellar to the 
first floor, and if any one in the house was master of this 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 271 

art the phenomena would have ceased with the departure 
of this person, and such was not the case. 

In short, the householder made considerable borings and 
excavations in his cellar to make sure that there were no 
electric wires, or acoustic apparatus of any kind connect¬ 
ing the cellar with the house. 

All those whom one interrogates in the near neighbour¬ 
hood, whether they are credulous or not, affirm the reality 
of the voices heard: persons, the most respectable, the 
least capable of trickery, the most exempt by their age or 
temperament from any hallucination or influence of any 
kind, have distinctly heard the voice: M. Hainot, Mayor 
of Valence, the teacher, and the priest, who, by the way, 
does not see any diabolic activity in these strange phe¬ 
nomena. 

The young servant was not afraid of the inconvenient 
guest, although she was the origin of his pleasantries. 
She was in the cellar getting coal when he snuffed her 
candle. That was the prelude to the mystifications which, 
alas! finished the poor helpless invalid. 

The authorities have been sent for. There is an en¬ 
quiry on foot. It will have the usual result. 

Dr. Encausse 
(“Papus”). 

This haunted house of Valence-en-Brie (Seine-et- 
Marne) must not astonish us more than the others. 
The mysterious voice we have already met. We also 
know those displacements of objects and broken 
windows. These are unknown forces in action. 

My readers are well informed. Do they not re¬ 
member in vol. iii of Death and Its Mystery a curious 
haunting which revealed a theft committed by a 
former chambermaid? 

We said just now that all countries and all times 
furnish material for us. The city of Turin alone 
furnishes a large number. Here is, among others, 
a curious case discovered by M. Vesme in 1901, and 
published in his Revue des Etudes Psychiques : 


272 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


La Stampa, of Turin, one of the most important papers 
of Italy, published in its number of May 10 the following 
article: 

A strange occurrence was observed yesterday in a small 
dwelling consisting of two attics at No. 6 Corso Valdocco, 
inhabited for some time by a certain Juvenal Menardi 
with his wife and their children. 

About 5 p.m. this man was surprised to see several small 
pieces of furniture move. After that a number of objects 
and kitchen utensils which were on the mantelpiece or hung 
on the wall detached themselves and fell with a clatter. 

Everybody can imagine the consternation of these good 
people. 

Mr. Menardi, after giving the alarm to his neighbours, 
remembered that on the first floor of the same building 
the police commissariat of the Montcenis quarter had its 
headquarters. So he descended the stairs four steps at a 
time and went to the police to inform them of the ad¬ 
venture and ask for their help. 

A constable at once went up to the attics, where he was 
able not only to verify the disorder among the objects 
there, but he and the family Menardi, as well as some 
neighbours, saw a smoothing-iron leave the mantelpiece 
and fall on the floor. 

It is even added that some moments afterwards a jug 
full of milk, without being touched by anybody, was upset 
and emptied. People asked whether the foundations of 
the house were solid. 

Meanwhile the rumour of what had happened spread 
like wildfire, and people came from all quarters to be 
present at the show. But Mr. Menardi and his family 
had no wish to remain in the dwelling. They locked it 
up and all went elsewhere. 

On the following day La Stampa went back to the sub¬ 
ject: 

Yesterday afternoon we visited the house in the Corso 
Valdocco, in order, if possible, to witness some of the 
phenomena we wrote about. 

The Menardi lodging is on the third floor. When we 
arrived no member of the family was in the place. 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


273 


In leaving Mrs. Menardi had left the key with the con¬ 
cierge, Mr. Adolphe Schiappa, so that he might he able 
to admit to the lodging any visitors who might come. The 
floor of the two rooms is almost covered with fragments of 
pottery and bottles. 

While we were examining the debris we saw a good old 
woman come up, Mrs. Teresa Francesetti, who held in her 
arms the youngest son of Mr. Menardi, a pretty baby of 
barely six months. She had been present at the appearance 
of the first phenomena, and here is her story nearly lit¬ 
erally : 

I was in the rooms, sitting down there by the window. 
I was sewing. All the Menardi children were about me. 
The mother had gone out to buy milk. 

Suddenly, about half-past four, I saw the little table 
upset. I first thought it was the wind. I picked up the 
table and set to work again. A moment afterwards the 
table fell again. I picked it up again. The same thing 
happened several times more. Losing patience, but still 
thinking it was the draught, I carried the table to another 
corner of the room. Then it did not fall. But a few 
moments afterwards I was amazed to see a china dish 
fall from the chimney-piece and smash on the floor. I got 
up to see what was happening, but a bottle jumped and 
broke on the floor. Several neighbours ran up, among them 
Mrs. Menardi, the concierge Schiappa, and Constable An- 
dries. Mrs. Menardi sent for her husband and a priest. 

Abbe Valimberto, curate of the Parish of Cormina, soon 
arrived. The scene is depicted for us by a neighbour, Miss 
Kreifemberg. When the Abbe arrived, I was in the Me¬ 
nardi lodgings with some other people. The priest blessed 
the two rooms. We were kneeling and responding to pray¬ 
ers. Some women had in their hands those olive branches 
which are distributed on Palm Sunday. When the prayers 
were finished, the priest had some holy water put into a 
glass. The glass was put on the table where, among other 
objects, there was a small statue of the Virgin. Suddenly 
this statue fell on the floor and was broken, and the glass 
of holy water went to join it. 

The vandalistic phenomena then continued without in- 


274 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


terruption. In the whole dwelling not a single glass or 
china object is intact, except a mirror and a decanter. 
Everything is in smithereens, including the oil lamp. Need¬ 
less to say, nothing else is talked about in the house or 
in the rest of the town. 

The poor Menardi family is in a piteous state. The 
mother, a healthy and robust woman, is prostrated and 
weeps all the time. The children, especially the eldest girl 
are much frightened. 

Finally, on May 14, the same paper wrote: 

The Duke of the Abruzzi has visited the house and 
remained for ten minutes among the visitors, asking among 
them and especially among them the eyewitnesses for de¬ 
tailed information concerning the phenomena. He once 
more showed his devotion to science, that science which 
took him to the summit of Mount Saint Elias and among 
the icebergs of the Arctic Pole. 

To sum up, the affair caused much commotion, 
everybody talked about it, and there was no explana¬ 
tion. 

Another haunted house of Turin was the object 
of a special enquiry by Professor Lombroso. He 
writes: 18 

In November, 1900, I heard that strange and inex¬ 
plicable movements had been observed at No. 6, Via Bava, 
at Turin, in a cellar owned by the innkeeper named 
Fumero, which was exclusively used for depositing bottles. 
If anyone entered the cellar, the bottles, full or empty, 
started breaking, always by the action of the same unknown 
agents. In vain did a priest bless the place. The police 
were equally powerless. But they gave a hint to poor 
Mr. Fumero that it would have to stop. 

When, on November 21, I called at the cabaret without 
mentioning my name and asked for details of the alleged 
phenomena, I was much surprised to hear from the pro- 

is Annales des sciences psychiques, 1906, p. 266. See also Lom¬ 
broso, Ricerche sui fenomeni spiritici, Torino, 1909, p. 247; and 
Richet, Traite de mttapsychique, p. 737. 



AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


275 


prietors that the occurrences had really taken place, but 
that, fortunately, ‘ ‘ Professor Lombroso had come, and since 
then everything had ceased”! Much interested by this 
reply, as I had never set foot in the place, I revealed my 
identity and demanded an explanation, wishing to make 
sure whether somebody had not misused my name for a 
purpose concerning which I reserved my action. Mr. and 
Mrs. Fumero then admitted that, having heard that I 
would probably come, they conceived the idea of saying 
that my coming had put the ‘‘spirits’’ to flight! They thus 
succeeded in ridding themselves of the police and sightseers, 
and for that purpose they saw no harm in attributing to 
me the powers of Grand Exorcist! But these good people 
then told me that, unfortunately, the phenomena were 
continuing, and that probably I could verify them with my 
own eyes if I would go down into the cellar. 

I eagerly accepted the offer. I entered into the cellar, 
at first in total darkness, and I heard the noise of breaking 
glass and of bottles rolling at my feet. The bottles were 
ranged on five shelves, one over the other. In the centre 
there was a rough table, on which I made them place six 
lighted candles, thinking that the bright light would stop 
the phenomena. But, on the contrary, I saw three empty 
bottles, standing upright on the ground, roll as if pushed 
by a foot and break against the table. To guard against 
trickery I touched and minutely examined with a candle 
all the full bottles on the shelves and made sure there 
was no thread or wire which would explain the move¬ 
ments. 

After a few minutes two bottles, then four, and then 
two more bottles of the second and third shelf, fell to the 
floor without a shock, as if they had been carried. After 
their descent—one could not call it a fall—six of them 
broke on the moist ground, already impregnated with wine, 
while two remained intact. A quarter of an hour later 
three more bottles of the last row fell and broke on the 
ground. And as I was just leaving the cellar, I heard 
another bottle break. 

Among the testimony of eyewitnesses I shall only report 
that of the accountant, Pierre Merini, whose deposition 


276 HAUNTED HOUSES 

completes my own. It is dated January 9, 1901, and is 
as follows: 

“Down there (in the cellar), in the company of several 
other persons, I saw the bottles breaking without apparent 
or plausible cause. I wanted to be alone in order the 
better to verify the phenomenon. The others having agreed, 
I shut myself up in the cellar while everybody else retired 
to the end of the passage at the foot of the stairs leading 
to the floor above. I first made sure by means of a candle 
that I was really alone. This was easy, on account of the 
smallness of the cellar and the difficulty of hiding behind 
the few utensils in it. Along the long side of the cellar 
was a set of strong planks resting at each end on upright 
beams. These planks were entirely covered by bottles, full 
and empty. I should mention that the window onto the 
yard, which formerly lighted the cellar, was then obstructed 
by a plank. 

“I then saw several empty and full bottles break of 
their own accord under my eyes. I brought a step-ladder 
up to the place where the breakages occurred. I took down 
a bottle which had just broken, and of which only the 
lower half remained. I separated it from the others, placing 
it some distance away. After a few moments the bottle 
finished cracking and burst into fragments! This is one 
of the things I can most distinctly certify. 

“Carefully examining the manner in which the bottles 
broke, I found that the breakage was preceded by a crack¬ 
ing such as usually occurs in glass which splits up. I 
have already mentioned that the empty bottles broke also, 
so that the explosion cannot have been due to the evolution 
of gas by fermentation (which in any case is improbable). 

“To give an idea of the noise made by the breaking and 
crumbling of the bottles, I can compare it with that of the 
drops of glass which reduce themselves to powder on scrap¬ 
ing them, and are known as ‘ Rupert’s drops/ ” 

On November 22, Mrs. Fumero, wife of the innkeeper, 
left for her native place. She remained there for three 
days, and during that time nothing unusual occurred. On 
her return to Turin the phenomena reappeared. On No¬ 
vember 26, Mrs. Fumero again went away, but on this 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


277 


occasion the phenomena continued. Then it was decided 
to send away the potboy, and the phenomena finally ceased. 
Must we conclude that the phenomena were produced by 
his mediumship ? This seems very probable, as there is no 
question of trickery on his part. We have seen that the 
phenomena took place in the cellar when the boy was not 
there. In the shop, displacements of objects had been 
observed when he was there, but under the eyes of all. 

Everything goes to show that the boy was the unconscious 
agent. He showed no abnormal peculiarity. The intensity 
of the phenomena shows some relation to his physical state. 
For some days, when he was ill, the noises were less loud. 
This fact, which is rather disconcerting, has been observed 
in the case of other mediums. 

In connection with haunted houses, it is interesting to 
note that such things can now be talked about, as they are 
numerous and well attested, whereas formerly there was 
a tendency to ignore them. 

At present they are being noted and studied. Yet they 
are easily forgotten, and men of science sufficiently coura¬ 
geous and unprejudiced to concern themselves with them 
are still few in number. As we have seen, if I had not 
turned up, the public, misled by the very inhabitants of the 
house, would have thought that the arrival of the police 
or myself had sufficed to stop the phenomena; in other 
words, though the author of the deception was not found, 
they would have thought that the phenomena were due 
to trickery, and therefore unworthy of being studied. 

For my part, if I made the mistake of denying the facts 
before I observed them, I have not thought it right to go 
on denying them for the simple reason that I could not 
explain them. 

(Sg.) Dr. Lombroso. 

That illustrious savant is straightforward and in¬ 
dependent. In Turin alone he examined ten haunted 
houses. His conviction is definite and unshakable. 
He remarks that if in 28 cases out of 100 one finds 
the action of mediums, that action is the more re¬ 
markable as the great energy of the phenomena ob- 


278 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


served is contrasted with the weakness of children 
and women associated with them. 

Let us examine all objections for the sake of our 
general instruction, but let us not be misled by 
mirages. The reality of the facts is undoubted; and 
as regards the causes, they are yet to seek. 

I could, perhaps, add at the end of this chapter a 
special case, which made a great commotion at 
Grenoble in 1907. An esprit frappeur (Poltergeist) 
manifested its presence every night in the dwelling 
of a lady of the name of Massot. But it was not the 
spirit of a dead person. It was the spirit of a young 
girl very much alive, who wished to get married! 

Here is a summary of the case according to a 
private account sent to me: 

M. de Beylie, ex-president of the tribunal of commerce, 
and owner of the haunted house, conducted a singular 
enquiry in the presence of M. Pelatant, central commis¬ 
sioner, and Police-Inspector Berger. Constables had been 
stationed on the roof, others in the neighbouring rooms and 
in the street, in order to eliminate all trickery. 

The persons present surrounded the wall upon which 
the rapping spirit was in the habit of operating. The raps 
seemed to be struck from both sides at once. 

The phenomena are only produced when Mile. Alice 
Cocat, Mme. Massot’s niece, is present. But there is no 
question of fraud on the part of the girl, who remains 
among those present and is watched by them while the 
raps are sounding. For five years she has been engaged 
to a nephew of Mme. Massot, aged twenty-five, who is a 
working electrician, and has served in the second regiment 
of artillery at Grenoble. His description tallies with that 
furnished by the mysterious rapper. As the raps are not 
considered as emanating from the spirit of a deceased but 
a living person, they are probably only a function of the 
faculties of Mile. Alice. 

One naturally thinks of a well-acted comedy. But the 
Wall against which the spirit raps is only 4 inches thick. 


AMONG HAUNTED HOUSES 


279 


and it separates two rooms which, have been inspected and 
examined by professors of the University, the chief of 
police, and numerous detectives, in the presence of the 
Massot family. And as it was impossible for a person to 
hide in the wall, all trickery seems excluded. 

This particular haunting, revealing the ideas of 
living persons, has been much discussed. The Gren¬ 
oble papers added my portrait to their special edi¬ 
tions, and invented comments which I did not make, 
having remained an entire stranger to this story. 
My friend, Colonel de Bochas, who came from Gren¬ 
oble to see me at the time, declared that he could 
not understand it at all. It seems to me that it was 
the girl’s subconscious self which was at work. 

It is time to terminate this general excursion. I 
still have several hundred stories before me, includ¬ 
ing a very strange one from Neuville (Aix), dating 
from 1900, and a similar one from 1909 at Florence. 
But these would but repeat what we have learnt. 
We shall now classify the phenomena, and pay 
special attention to those associated with the dead. 


CHAPTER X 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA. HAUNTINGS 
ASSOCIATED WITH THE DEAD 

T HE general excursion which we have just made 
among haunted houses has unrolled before 
our eyes a series of pictures of great variety 
which it would be interesting and instructive to 
classify. We shall attempt to do so. We may suc¬ 
ceed in discovering the causes and approach the 
long-sought explanation. 

In this classification we shall have to consider the 
production of physical forces not associated in any 
way with the problem of survival, while others are 
so associated beyond a doubt, as we have seen in the 
last chapter, particularly in the first case described 
there. This association has been obvious in several 
cases, and we are the better prepared to accept it as 
we have had experimental proofs of survival solidly 
established. We shall commence this classification 
with hauntings associated with deceased persons, 
leaving the others for the next chapter. 

Let us not blind ourselves in either direction. 
Some phenomena are clearly associated with the 
intentions of deceased persons, while others are 
quite independent of them. 

The exclusively anthropological theory has been 
refuted in the present work by direct observations 
(see particularly pp. 66, 150 to 177, 183, 202, 210, 
217, 231, 247 to 261). These observations clearly 
show the insufficiency of that theory. We must 
therefore decide between manifestations of the dying 
and those of the dead, both exterior to ourselves. 

280 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 281 

Let us, above all, remember that at all times and 
in all countries these unexpected phenomena have 
been attributed to the dead. Was it an illusion of 
ignorance or fear? Everything goes to prove the 
contrary. 

It were superfluous to go back to what has been 
said in the preceding chapter. Each of the examples 
mentioned could be paralleled by several similar 
ones. With a coincidence so frequent that it cannot 
be fortuitous, unknown deaths are instantly marked 
by physical phenomena. Broken mirrors are not 
rare, and have, indeed, created quite a legendary 
tradition. There can be no question of auto-sugges¬ 
tion or illusion. On this I have a recent letter (April 
30, 1922): 

I am a printing compositor. I was working at 20, Rue 
Tnrgot. Opposite me a girl of seventeen was working, 
Ida Schaub. One day, at midday, this girl, about to leave 
the works, she was powdering her face with the aid of a 
small mirror she was holding in her hands at the level of 
her eyes. Being free-spoken with her, as with all those 
in the shop, I chaffed her about her powder and her 
coquetry, and was looking at her, when the mirror broke 
into a thousand pieces in her hand, without her making 
any movement. “Oh, my mother!” she exclaimed. 

On going home to the Rue Trezel, half an hour’s walk, 
she found her mother lying across the door dead. She had 
succumbed to apoplexy and was still warm. 

(Sg.) Auguste P autre. 

31, RUE MAZARINE. 

Now here is a material, objective fact, and no 
illusion is possible. If it was produced by the girl’s 
organism, the coincidence with the mother’s sudden 
death is undeniable. Chance again? The little god 
must indeed have a broad back! 

Here is another fact among a thousand, communi¬ 
cated to me by M. G. Brochenin, of 2, Rue de Con- 


282 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


flans, Place des ficoles, Charenton, on February 25, 
1922: 

Since you are, in the interests of humanity, continuing 
your vast and laborious enquiry concerning the mysteries 
of the Beyond, I consider it my duty to place you in 
possession of a fact which enters within the purview of 
your studies. 

In my household, Mine. Colassot, now about sixty years 
old, told me of an occurrence which she remembers pre¬ 
cisely, though it happened thirty-three years ago, and of 
which a material trace remains. At that time she was 
nursing a very sick baby of twenty-two months with the 
passionate devotion of a mother. The baby died in spite 
of the care lavished upon it by the family. It is then that 
the remarkable occurrence took place. At the moment of 
death a very loud noise was heard, and Mme. Colassot 
found that the top of her dining-room sideboard, more than 
a yard long and an inch in thickness, had split along its 
whole length. The occurrence struck her all the more as 
it corresponded to the death of her baby son, and she 
saw in it a supernatural phenomenon impossible to ex¬ 
plain. 

Mme. Colassot was a loving woman, with an exaggerated 
devotion to her own, and excessively serviceable to every¬ 
body. Prostrated with the intensity of her suffering, may 
she not have unconsciously projected some fluid comparable 
to some extent to lightning, and sufficiently powerful to 
split the wood ? 

Forgive me, dear Master, if in my ignorance I put for¬ 
ward such a risky hypothesis. 

This electrical hypothesis is what occurs naturally 
to every enquiring spirit. 

We have there, as in the case of the small mirror 
broken in the girl’s hands mentioned above, a ma¬ 
terial occurrence coinciding with a death. 

And now for another kind of material movement. 

In L’Inconnu I announced the following occur¬ 
rence, reported to me by an esteemed artist: 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 283 


About a year and a half ago my father, my sister, and 
a cousin staying with us, were conversing in the dining¬ 
room. The three of us were alone in the dwelling when 
they suddenly heard the piano playing in the salon. Much 
surprised, my sister took the lamp, went into the salon, 
and clearly saw several keys descending together, sounding 
the notes, and coming up again. 

She came back and told what she had seen. At first we 
laughed at her assertion and suspected a mouse in the 
affaire , but as the lady has excellent sight and is not in the 
least superstitious, we thought it strange. 

But a week afterwards a letter arrived from New York 
announcing the death of an old uncle who lived in that 
city. But, what was even more extraordinary, three days 
after the letter arrived the piano started playing again. 

As in the first case, the news of a death came a week 
afterwards: the death of my aunt. 

My uncle and aunt were a perfectly united couple. They 
were also greatly attached to their relatives and the Jura 
country, where they were born. 

The piano has not played since then. 

The witnesses of this occurrence will testify any time 
you wish. We live in the country round Neuchatel, and 
I assure you that we are not high-strung people. 

(Sg.) Edouard Paris 
(Artist-Painter). 

Victorien Sardou told me of an identical observa¬ 
tion made on his own piano when he lived on the 
fifth floor of the house situated at the corner of the 
Quai des Grands-Augustins and the Place Saint- 
Michel. He saw with his own eyes the keys going 
down, concurrently with the emission of the sound, 
and attributed the incident to his recently deceased 
sister. 

In the work referred to, a good many similar 
examples of movements observed at the moment of 
death are given, particularly the one on p. 112 (xl.) 
—two persons awakened by a friend dying at Gran- 


284 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


ville; and that on p. 188, of the uncle of Jules Clare- 
tie, knocking on the window of his people at Nantes 
at the moment when he was killed at Wagram. 

Of course, we cannot understand at all how an 
individual dying at Wagram can knock on a window 
at Nantes. But we must either admit these facts 
or deny them. To attribute them all to illusions, er¬ 
rors, misinterpretations, etc., seems to me an un¬ 
scientific expedient, however convenient it may be, 
and quite inadmissible. 

We have heard the sound of untouched piano keys. 
Here is the cover of a piano rising of its own accord 
at the moment of a death. On July 6, 1922, a Paris 
student, whose name it would be discreet not to 
mention, wrote to me to say that when he was living 
in a Government building together with a student 
of the Sorbonne, they were one evening playing the 
piano and dancing within a hundred yards of a 
youth who was on his death-bed. Their noise could 
not, however, be heard at that distance. 

We were five in the salon, two of us dancing, a lady 
playing, myself standing behind her, and her sister beside 
her. The cover of this heavy grand piano rose before 
my eyes some four or five inches, without the objects on 
it sliding down. 1 The cover only rose and fell. We after¬ 
wards heard of the young man’s death, and thought he had 
wished to show his displeasure in that way. I confess I 
am only sixteen, but I am not inventing anything. I only 
tell you what I saw. Please excuse a schoolboy’s anxiety 
to let you know what he saw to help you in your search 
for truth. 

These are direct and unexpected observations. I 
can understand lies and illusions, but my enquiries 
have always proved the veracity of the narrators. 2 


1 This observation, which contradicts gravitation, is not rare. 
I have several times found this absence of gliding myself. 

2 The only case which remains, not, indeed, doubtful, but in- 



CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 285 


We seek an explanation in electrical transmission. 

What is electricity? We do not know. 

What is the magnetic element which, coming from 
the sun 93 million miles away, comes and moves the 
magnetic needle of the compass? We are equally 
ignorant. 

What is the transmission of telegraphy or tele¬ 
phony through air, over mountains, and over seas, 
which can he caught in its passage in a closed house? 
Mystery also. 

Let us therefore he modest in our blind and deaf 
denials. 

Subjective phenomena can become objective. In 
L’Inconnu we can read in the chapter on 1 i Phan¬ 
tasms of the Dying’’ a letter from an inhabitant of 
Valabre (Vaucluse), who wrote (Letter 714): 

I may have been twelve years of age. My poor father, 
one of the heroes of Sidi-Ibrahim, had passed the night 
and part of the day at the bedside of his mother, who was 
seriously ill. He had left, and about 4 p.m., one of my 
uncles went to find him and tell him that his mother was 
worse and had expressed a wish to see the two little sons. 
My father wanted to bring us along. My younger brother 
obeyed, but I resisted so wildly that nothing could shake 
my resolution, all because I was very much afraid of the 
dead. 

I therefore remained alone in the house with my mother, 
who, after supper, wanted to put me to bed. But I refused 


sufficiently reported, is that of the premonition associated with 
Lord Dufferin. Its verification is still pending. I know three 
different versions of the story: (1) The version published by 
myself (vol. ii, p. 231). (2) That contained in Liliana , by Sien- 

kiewicz (Madrid, 1921, p. 154); Sienkiewicz died in 1917. (3) 
That published by Stainton Moses in Light , 1892, p. 181, and 
1907, p. 64, reproduced in Bozzano’s Phenomenes premonitoirea 
(Paris, 1914, p. 397). It sometimes happens that the same story 
is given in several different forms, and that is why I much prefer 
first-hand stories written by the witnesses themselves. But we 
must not trust ourselves to mendacious negations of interested 
parties. 



286 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


to go, being still afraid. She then put me into her own 
bed, promising to join me soon. 

About half-past seven I was slapped in the face with 
extraordinary violence. I started to cry. My mother came 
on hearing me cry, and asked what was the matter. I re¬ 
plied I had been beaten and my cheek hurt. My mother 
found, indeed, that my cheek was red and swollen. Alarmed 
by what had taken place, she longed for the return of 
my father and my uncle. My father did not come in till 
about nine. My mother told him what had happened to 
me, and when she told him the hour he said: “That was 
just when his grandmother breathed her last. ’ 1 

For over six months I had on my right cheek the impress 
of a right hand, which was very apparent, especially after 
playing, when my face was redder. This was observed by 
hundreds of people. The trace of the hand was white. 

(Sg.) A. Michel 
(Dyer at the Valabre Dye Works). 


This memorable slap, received by the hoy who 
obstinately refused to go and see his dying grand¬ 
mother, is, of course, rather burlesque; but we may 
admit that it is logical enough and apparently justi¬ 
fied. To explain it is more difficult. Is it, perhaps, 
an effect of auto-suggestion, due to remorse or fear? 
A subjective phenomenon which became objective? 
We shall later on have to discuss similar peculiari¬ 
ties, such as stigmata. 

That the dead manifest themselves at the time of 
death by unexpected and inexplicable incidents such 
as visions, sounds, movements, noises, and diverse 
sensations, has been shown by hundreds of accounts 
I have published, and in the preceding chapter we 
have the positive observation, made by three friends 
who, expecting a comrade for the opening of the 
hunt, received from him a singular manifestation 
which was perceived at the same time by the dogs 
of the house. We have also seen the remarkable 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 287 


fall of the portrait observed in the bishopry of 
Monaco, coinciding with a death, and subsequent 
observations. We also remember ( L’Inconnu , 
“Phantasms of the Dead,” p. 123) the letter of a 
professor of St. Petersburg, announcing that, at the 
hour of his sister’s death, the sister’s portrait, 
though solidly fixed, fell without the nail being tom 
out, and that the clock stopped. These observations 
are significant, for great though chance may be, it 
has its limits. 

Here is another account worthy of attention: 

From an absolutely reliable source I have an extraor¬ 
dinary and authentic fact. My people had been called to 
the bedside of a neighbour who was dying. They went 
there and joined some assembled friends who waited silently 
for the sad end. Suddenly they heard in a clock hanging 
on the wall, which had not gone for years, a great uproar, 
a deafening noise, like a hammer striking on an anvil. 
Those present rose up in alarm, wondering what the noise 
signified. “You can see it,” said someone, pointing to the 
dying person. Shortly afterwards the latter breathed his 
last. 

(Sg.) H. Faber 

(Agricultural Engineer at Bissen, Luxemburg) 

I add the following to the above observations 
(p. 178). Another communication of the same pe¬ 
riod (1899) gave me a description of an occurrence 
not less curious, although subjective. M. Ferdinand 
Esteve, of Marseilles, wrote to me: 

I was sixteen years old. I was on a visit to the village 
of Les Gavots. My cousin, newly married, put me up in 
a neighbouring house, the home of an aged relative, who 
thought to do me a great honour in giving me the room 
in which her husband had died. 

It was a vast room without a door. From the bed one 
could see the enormous well of the staircase. I went to 


288 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


bed without even shutting the window, for it was a warm 
night in August, and I slept very soundly. 

Suddenly I was awakened by an infernal uproar, by a 
frightful noise of saucepans being thrown about, broken 
dishes, of plates flying into pieces, which I heard clattering 
on the concrete floor of the kitchen. One would have said 
a regiment of cats was upsetting everything in the house. 
This last idea reassured me. However, the uproar lasted 
for more than an hour, with some interruptions. When 
silence was re-established I heard, rushing towards me from 
the foot of the staircase, and saw some kind of animal, 
which I took for a cat, jump with one bound on to my 
bed and with another out of the window, whence it dis¬ 
appeared. 

I went immediately to shut the window. What was 
my astonishment to find that it was already closed on the 
outside by wire-netting of one-third of an inch mesh. My 
surprise was greatly increased when, day being come, I 
saw everything in order in the kitchen—not a scrap of 
broken crockery! 

Three days after my mother slept in the same room 
and witnessed the same phenomena. 

Hallucination? We can discover no reason for 
that in this young man of sixteen who observed 
with such composure. All this is very complex. Yes, 
the first impulse is to see nothing hut hallucination 
in it. But the slap received by M. Michel was no 
hallucination; and if M. Esteve’s cat was but an 
illusion, and the noise of unbroken crockery in the 
kitchen the same, how is it that the mother received 
the same impression, and what is the cause of the 
sensation? 

In these last cases we may see subjective impres¬ 
sions which are yet produced by external causes, the 
former by the dying and angry grandmother, and 
the latter by the shades of the dead relative. 

These incomprehensible noises recall numerous 
observations of the same order which we have al- 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 289 


ready studied. The verifications are innumerable. 
Here is a rather striking one: 3 

M. Baechly, of Saverne, aged twenty, was alone with 
his father in the house, when a terrible uproar was heard 
about midnight. The father and son both started up, not 
knowing what it could be. The uproar came again. The 
father and son, having gone to bed, got up again and 
met at the open door. The door opened violently a third 
time. They then bound it with thick twine. Some time 
afterwards, a letter announced that M. Baeschly’s brother 
had died in America, precisely on the day of the uproar, 
at 1 p.m. It appears that the dying man, waking up out 
of a prolonged coma, said: “I have been on a great voy¬ 
age ; I have been to see my brother at Brumath. 

There can be no doubt that material movements 
are associated, both far and near, with the physical 
and psychical phenomenon of death. 

These noises at the moment of death are of the 
same order as those of haunted houses, and must 
be due to the same cause. There are many other 
examples. 

The following letter was sent to me on February 
11,1899, by Mme. de la Garde: 

For your interesting researches I consider it my duty 
to tell you that a remarkable manifestation occurred at 
the death of Monseigneur du Lau. All the windows of his 
castle of la Cotte, commune of Biras, Dordogne, opened 
at once, which led the good people of the country, who 
witnessed it, to say that the saintly Bishop had just 
died. 

Actually they found afterwards that their master, whom 
they had not seen for many years, had breathed his last 
on that day. I believe Mgr. du Lau was a martyr. His 
life has been written by a priest of Perigord, M. Pecout 
(now senior priest at Hautefort). He mentions this strange 

3 Chevreuil, On ne meurt pas, p. 334; Richet, Traits de Meta- 
psychique , p. 358. 



290 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


fact, which was reported to him by inhabitants of Biras 
who had witnessed it. 

Here is another communication of the same epoch 
(received June 3, 1899): 

To the innumerable letters sent to you for your very 
useful work you may add the following: 

In the last days of February, 1868, I had to go to Tauli- 
gran, a large commune of Drome, not far from Montelimar, 
at the request of my mother, who was dying. I arrived 
in time to see her expire. 

On the very day of her burial, March 1, I was in her 
death-room, alone with the servant and the latter’s child. 
There was not enough breeze to stir a leaf. Suddenly the 
door of the room, wide open to the landing, banged with 
a loud noise. We opened it at once to see whether any¬ 
body was on the stairs, but we could see nobody. My 
mother was the sole occupant of the house. The servant, 
mad with fear, fell on her knees and cried: “That must 
be your mother, who wants our prayers! And she began 
to tell her beads. The child cried and called for “Mama 
Alan§on.” I was more affected than I can tell you. The 
scene is engraved on my memory, and in reading your 
writings it vividly returned to me, and I asked whether the 
Beyond really existed. 

Your assiduous and respectful reader, 

Alan^on 

(Agent of the Union Co. at Moulins). 

(Letter 726.) 

In this, as in the preceding case, the phenomenon 
is very objective. 

It is by a comparison of all the facts observed that 
we must form our opinion. (Note, in passing, these 
frequent religious associations.) 

Another letter sent to me from Poitiers on June 
7,1922: 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 291 


Dear Master, 

After seeing your psychic trilogy I must make my 
modest contribution to your researches on the Unseen. 

The following event was witnessed by my wife and 
her aunt, who attest it below. 

Some days after the decease of my wife’s maternal 
grandfather, Frangois Coudreau, on September 30, 1899, 
noises were heard in the house where he died. My wife, 
then quite a young girl, had gone to bed with her grand¬ 
mother. Her aunt, now the widowed Mme. Roy, had gone 
to bed in the same room. 

It was 10 p.m. They all heard something like pebbles 
thrown at the window-panes. As there was no storm or 
wind they thought of some practical joke. The grand¬ 
mother called out, ‘‘Who’s there?” but there was no 
reply. 

The noise continued for some ten minutes, intermittently. 
They also heard something like the noise of a shovel stirring 
the heap of coal in the yard, which sounded as if it were 
being thrown against the wall. 

I must tell you that the deceased had been in the habit, 
during his lifetime, of shovelling this heap. 

Also, the latch of the door seemed to move noisily, as if 
somebody wanted to enter. 

Much frightened, the three women started praying, as 
they believed the soul of the deceased was there. Finally 
my wife’s aunt called in a loud voice: “If that is you, 
father, speak to us! ” The noise stopped immediately. 

Next morning they found everything in its place outside 
the house. There was no trace on the windows nor on the 
walls. The shovel was lying on the heap of coal as usual. 

Masses were said, and the noises did not come again. 

A detail which may be important is this: On the day 
when the event occurred, the grandmother had found in a 
trunk which the deceased had always forbidden her to 
open a beautiful plait of hair of his first wife, whom he 
had loved much. She had burnt the plait. 

The witnesses maintain that it cannot have been a prac¬ 
tical joke, since the windows would have been broken with 
the violence of the blows (the windows have no shutters). 


292 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Nobody could enter the yard to throw the coal against the 
wall, and indeed no trace was found next morning. 

Yours, etc. 

(Sg.) Pouillart. 


Attestations. 

We confirm the above narrative of M. Pouillart and de¬ 
clare that he has faithfully described what happened. 

E. Pouillart and Widow Roy. 

To suppose that all this has been invented has no 
sense. But we cannot refrain from remarking on 
the triviality of these manifestations. In any case, 
the duty of the researcher is to study everything. 
These noises were purely subjective and correspond 
to no material movement. 

The same applies to the observation made by a 
student of Buckingham, M. Rene Gautiers, which 
we summarise here: 

My father lived in a lonely castle in the middle of the 
wood. We were in the dining-hall, talking at length after 
supper, and waiting for my grandfather, who was expected 
back. The night went by without fatigue when, at 2 a.m., 
everybody in the dining-hall, including two soldier uncles, 
who were very sceptical, distinctly heard the door of the 
salon shut with a violence which made them all jump 
from their seats. There was no mistake. The door which 
banged, or was heard to bang, was an adjoining door. It 
was the bang of a door, and of an inside door. My mother 
often said to me: “We heard the door close as if a 
prodigious gust had got into the house and had violently 
struck the door.” This gust of wind, quite unreal, had 
this amount of reality, that my people felt it on their faces, 
and that it left them in a sort of cold perspiration as 
one gets it in a nightmare. Conversation stopped. The 
violent banging of the door seemed strange to them and 
gave them an undefinable feeling of uneasiness. Soon my 
uncle burst into laughter at the piteous faces of his mother 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 293 


and his sisters. He organised a spirited hunt. My uncle, a 
man of courage, went ahead to see the door of the salon. 
Everybody thought it had been shut. But it was found 
locked and bolted. All doors and windows were shut, and 
no draught could enter the house on any floor. 

My grandfather returned next morning and announced 
the death of his brother-in-law. “At what hour?” “At 
2 a.m.” “Two o’clock?” “At two precisely.’’ The bang¬ 
ing of the door had been heard by seven persons at 2 a.m. 
precisely. 

Subjective impressions, caused by an unknown 
death (same case as that of General Parmentier, 
L’Inconnu , Case 1). 

It is very strange and incomprehensible that the 
death of a person should produce at a distance the 
sensation of a gust of wind which opens a window. 
Yet it has been frequently observed. Here is another 
case which, though old, is as yet unpublished. It 
dates from Buda-Pesth, April 16, 1901: 

Dear Brother, 

If I allow myself to write to you under this title, 
it is because we are brothers in our ideas of the hidden 
faculties of the human soul and the importance of study¬ 
ing them. 

I consider it my duty to acquaint you with a phenomenon, 
similar to those you study, which happened to me long 
ago. 

My father had been ill for several weeks with acute 
neuralgia, which made him so feeble that at his age of 
sixty-five years his death was feared. My wife and I 
were in a state of continual unrest until on the night of 
4th to 5th April we awoke with a start on hearing a 
terrific gust opening the window of the neighbouring room 
with a great noise, though we had heard the servant close 
it the previous evening. 

We felt the gust coming under the door which separates 
the two rooms. 

At the moment of waking up, I had at once the feeling 


294 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


as if my father might have died at that moment. I lighted 
up and found it was a few minutes past three. 

I said nothing to my wife, in order not to disturb her 
sleep. But when next morning we received a telegram 
with the fatal news of my father’s death, my wife confessed 
that she had also had a similar feeling at the moment of 
awakening, but more positive than mine, because whereas 
I felt the possibility of the death, she was sure of it. 

I must add that the gust was one of exceptional force, 
that it only lasted one or two minutes, and terminated in 
a light draught which lasted until morning. 

When we arrived at my father’s dwelling-place (Tren- 
cien, in Hungary, 112 miles from here in a straight line), 
one of my first questions was an enquiry as to the hour 
of his death. The reply given by my sister, a girl of 
twenty-one, who had watched by him, was that he died a 
few minutes after 3 a.m. 

Permit me to add that I am of a thoughtful disposition, 
a mechanical engineer and electrician, used to minute 
observation, to clear ideas, and to caution in arriving at 
conclusions. 

I give you my word of honour that I have added nothing 
to, and omitted nothing from, the facts which seem es¬ 
sential to arrive at a conclusion, and at the same time I 
authorise you to publish this with my name and occupation. 
You can make enquiries about me from M. Desire Borda, 
Director of the Electric Service of the Fives-Lille Com¬ 
pany at Paris, Rue Caumartin, and from M. Maurice 
Loewy, Director of the Paris Observatory 

Yours, etc. 

(Sg.) Leopold Stark. 

buda-pesth, (Letter 988.) 

covohaz, 34. 

On enquiry, I found that this letter must be ac¬ 
cepted as worthy of confidence. The author is a 
man of scientific standing. In reality, this phenom¬ 
enon was subjective. The window did not open. 
There was only a sensation—an impression. But 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 295 


whatever our view of it, the sensation is incontes¬ 
tably proved. 

Now comes a strange case of haunting, correspond¬ 
ing to the anniversary of an execution, reported to 
me in 1899 (Letter 614c): 

A lady of my acquaintance had rented a flat in a coun¬ 
try house for change of air. 

There were several tenants. One morning at four every¬ 
body was awakened by extraordinary noises. The furni¬ 
ture in a large room seemed to roll about with a noise of 
chains. It was quite an uproar. All the tenants were 
women, and one became hysterical. My friend’s servant 
slept in a room adjoining hers. She came in trembling 
and said that a man in heavy boots had been walking round 
her before the noise commenced. 

My friend, much concerned, went to the town and told 
people of the occurrence in the evening. Several people 
told her: ‘‘ But this is the date of the death of Sainlouis, 
executed at 4 a.m. a year ago.” My friend’s servant had 
been Sainlouis’s mistress. She had left him to be con¬ 
verted, and he, in his fury, had decided to kill her. He 
shot at her—but killed another person. Sainlouis, con¬ 
demned to death, had been executed on the date and at 
the hour when the strange noises were produced in the 
house where his concubine lived. I forgot to tell you 
that the room in question was found locked, with all the 
furniture in proper place. 

(Sg.) H. Cotel. 

Among the phenomena of haunted houses, some 
are objective, material, and external to the percipi¬ 
ents; while others are subjective, perceived by the 
spirit, but as real as the former, produced by a more 
or less distant telepathic cause, generally an un¬ 
known death. It is necessary to pay special atten¬ 
tion to these singular noises, of which there is no 
explanation, and which one is inclined to dis¬ 
credit. 


296 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Probably none of my readers will contest tbe re¬ 
ality of telepathic transmissions to any distance, for 
such incredulity were inexcusable. But what a va¬ 
riety in transmission! The following observation, 
made under perfect conditions of security, is very 
remarkable. 

M. A. Riondel, advocate, of Montelimar, wrote on 
May 23, 1894, to Dr. Dariex: 4 

I had a brother much younger than myself (he died 
in his fortieth year, on April 2, last), who was employed 
on the telegraph lines at Marseilles, and was an agent of 
the Messageries Maritimes. Affected with anaemia owing 
to a long stay in the Colonies, my poor brother was at¬ 
tacked by marsh-fever, to which he succumbed, though 
nobody could have foreseen the terrible rapidity of the 
disease. On Sunday, April 1, last, I received a letter from 
him to say that his health was excellent. Well, on the 
night of that day— i.e., from Sunday to Monday, I was 
suddenly awakened by an unusual and violent noise, re¬ 
sembling that of a paving-stone rolling on the floor of 
my room, which I alone occupy and which was locked. 
I noticed that my alarm clock pointed to 2 a.m. Getting 
out of bed, I looked for the object which had disturbed 
me, but did not find it. It gave me a singular feeling 
of terror. 

Well, on that night my brother had died, without suf¬ 
fering or agony, and without saying a word. I asked 
the friend in whose arms he had died for the exact hour 
of his death. It was a quarter to two. 

To complete the particulars I send you I must add that 
our old mother, totally blind for the last fifteen years, also 
heard loud nocturnal noises on the door of her bedroom. 
I must tell you that I left her ignorant of this death, and 
she is still unaware of it. 

Under the impression that she had heard noises, my 
mother came to me just as I returned from my brother’s 
funeral. In my wife’s presence she told me sharply: 


4 Annales des Sciences Psychiques, 1895, p. 200. 



CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 297 


“Two or three nights ago I had a premonition concerning 
the health of your brother. You must go at once to 
Marseilles, for he must be worse and they are concealing 
it from you. Go and help him.” 

I soothed the apprehensions and presentiments of my 
poor mother, treating them as chimeras, as dreams and 
nightmares. 

That is my narrative. If it comes within your purview, 
you may print my name outright, or put my initials and 
address. These facts cannot be put down to imagination. 
They are tangible. 

I need not repeat that at present my mother still be¬ 
lieves that Benjamin is of this world. My duty is to leave 
her in that ignorance as long as I can. Such a fatal 
piece of news would kill her on the spot, so extremely 
feeble is her state of health. 

(Sg.) A. Kiondel 
(Advocate). 

Here are precise facts of observation, which, how¬ 
ever, remain incomprehensible. How can these 
noises be produced? A paving-stone rolling on the 
floor! To imagine (1) an auditory hallucination 
of such a noise; and (2) a chance coincidence with 
this unexpected death is an hypothesis difficult to 
sustain. And the mother’s telepathic sensation? 
These phenomena are so frequent that they must 
enter into the purview of modern science. Perhaps 
it is time to seek an explanation. 

We already met the impression of the rolling 
stone in the haunted castle of Calvados (see p. 124). 

The case is so remarkable and represents so many 
similar ones that I must not simply publish it with¬ 
out comment, but must seek an explanation. Well, 
this dying person was particularly fond of his 
brother. At the supreme moment a psychic cur¬ 
rent was established between him and his brother, 
and translated itself in the latter’s brain into the 


298 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


sensation of a noise, perfectly heard, as if a paving- 
stone had rolled on the floor of his room, and the 
noise was accompanied by a feeling of anxiety. 
There is the fact. We know many similar ones, 
notably those which have been published in vol. ii 
of Death and Its Mystery , in the chapter on ‘ 4 Deaths 
Announced by These Noises. ,, These telepathic 
transmissions are incontestable. Noises are heard 
I which differ according to the state of receptivity of 
the percipient. They are subjective and non-ma¬ 
terial noises. There is a projection between the 
cause and the effect, between the dying person and 
the percipient, and we are led to believe that in 
these cases we have not to deal with spherical waves 
spreading out and enlarging, like those of sound 
or light. It was probably not a wave of this kind 
which started from Marseilles in every direction, 
to be picked up in Paris by the brother of the dying 
man. Rather do we suspect a psychic current, like 
the magnetic current produced between a bar of 
iron and a magnetic needle. 

Such a psychic current would recall the link es¬ 
tablished between Captain Escourrou, killed in 
Mexico on March 29, 1863, and his mother, who was 
living at Sevres, near Paris. The latter on that 
day saw on his portrait one of his eyes destroyed 
and the blood flowing over his face. In publishing 
this remarkable telepathic occurrence in vol. ii, p. 
375, I did not add the numerous attestations and 
official documents which prove its authenticity, on 
account of lack of space, but those interested may 
look up the Annates des Sciences Psychiques for 
1891 (pp. 148 to 156), and they will find that no 
doubt is possible. Here, as in M. RiondePs obser¬ 
vation, we have obviously subjective phenomena. 
The portrait had not one eye destroyed, nor did 
blood flow over it. But at the moment of death 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 299 


the officer projected his last thought towards his 
mother, and that psychic current translated itself 
visibly in the aspect of the portrait. Such trans¬ 
missions are so numerous and clearly established 
that they must be received within the purview of 
positive science. 

Let us now listen to another story. 

A man appears to two persons, in two different 
rooms, at the moment of his death. Miss Tverdi- 
anski wrote to Dr. Richet in November, 1891, from 
Dormelles (Seine-et-Marne): 5 

I had just established myself in a small village of Seine- 
et-Marne to pass the summer. My hostess, an excellent old 
woman, had given me her own room, and as her bed was 
a good one I passed the first night in great comfort, sleep¬ 
ing soundly, and awakened late by the good woman, who 
brought me a hot cup of milk. 

It was different the second night. Hardly had I gone 
to sleep when I was awakened by a formidable concus¬ 
sion. The window, in spite of closed shutters, opened 
with a bang. As the window looked out upon a lonely 
road I thought that malefactors who knew the house was 
only inhabited by women had burst the springs of the shut¬ 
ters to get into the room. With a bound I was at the window 
to shut it and closed the shutters as firmly as I could. 

But I could not get to sleep again. It seemed to me that 
someone had come in by the window, and I fancied I 
heard this somebody or something the whole night long. 

The sun had just risen when I heard the steps of my 
landlady in the kitchen. I called out to her to get me 
my cup of milk as soon as possible. 

“Oh,” I said to her, when she came, “I believe some 
great nightbird opened my window last night by flying 
at the shutters, and perhaps some bats came in at the 
time, for I assure you that I heard movements about me 
all night. I did not sleep a wink.” 

“Like me,” she said smilingly—she was gay and fond 


s Annales des Sciences Psychiques, 1892, p. 129. 



300 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


of a joke—“I was awakened by the visit of my wicked 
neighbour, the farmer Dufour. I shall tell you some time 
how he set about stealing all my fortune without the law 
being able to punish him. Well, this precious man, whom 
I have not seen for years, paid me a visit last night. Did 
I dream it? I bet that I was awakened by his voice, 
that he stood in front of my bed and said, ‘Forgive me, 
Victoire. , Think of his impudence, calling me by my 
Christian name! Well, I have wept enough real tears on 
his account not to be angry with him in my dreams/* 

Just at the moment somebody knocked at the door and 
told us that that neighbour had died that very night. 

(Sg.) Julia Tverdianski. 

This narrative is accompanied by other letters 
from Mile. Tverdianski, of Mme. Veuve Petit, and 
an attestation by the Mayor of Dormelles of the 
death of Edme Firmin Dufour, on April 10, 1891, 
at 4 a.m. These I cannot reproduce from lack of 
space. 

To attribute to chance this double, or rather 
treble, coincidence of two impressions perceived 
independently of each other by the women, and of 
the death of this man, seems to me as impossible 
as to deny the very striking case quoted in vol. iii 
of La Mort, p. 373—J. Lewis, killed by a train and 
himself announcing his death. That occurrence led 
us, without a break of continuity, from 4 ‘ Telepathy 
between the Living’’ to “Telepathy between the 
Living and the Dead.” 

The dead Lewis wanted to have his corpse identi¬ 
fied, and tried to communicate with those in charge 
of his funeral, but without success. So he tried else¬ 
where, and found in a certain family the sensitives 
susceptible to telepathic influence, which enabled 
him to attain his object. 

It is impossible to think that all these narratives 
are false. We cannot explain them, but we are 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 301 


bound to affirm their reality. That is a beginning, 
because, until now, they have been doubted. We 
are collecting the stones which will go to the build¬ 
ing of a future science. 

Astronomy, that universal science, offers us ex¬ 
amples which can often be applied to other studies. 
Here is one which I pointed out long ago. Certain 
spiral nebulae, photographed with the help of pow¬ 
erful instruments, show stars symmetrically dis¬ 
tributed along their gaseous twists, and thus indi¬ 
cate the secret of the formation of these bodies. 
The coincidences are so numerous and so concord¬ 
ant that they cannot be attributed to chance, and we 
are led to recognise a causal connection. It is the 
same with these coincidences of deaths with mani¬ 
festations and apparitions. Chance plays no part 
here. 

But let us confess that explanation is difficult. 
The human soul has not yet been dissected. 

Plato wrote in Phcedrus: ^ux^c ouv <j>uoiv a£iuc 
Xcyou Kcrravoyjcai oki Suvorov dvaiaveu t y]C, tou oXo\j 4>uoeuc ; 
“Do you think that the nature of the soul can be 
sufficiently known if we do not know the nature of 
the universe V 9 6 This maxim could be applied to all 
reasoning about life. The judgments passed on 
human beings by their equals are almost always 
false, because we do not know the direct or indirect 
springs of action. The studies we are making here 
have a far-reaching significance. 

The psychical and physical faculties of the hu¬ 
man soul during life and after death are almost 
all yet to be discovered, and the observation of the 
phenomena of haunting sheds an unexpected light 
on this subject. 

Thus, well-observed movements of objects not 


Schopenhauer, The Foundations of Morality. 



302 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


touched by anybody turn out to be due to souls of 
the dead. Here is an example which is hardly cred¬ 
ible and is of Romanesque appearance, but which 
had been scrupulously studied by F. W. H. Myers 
and Mrs. Sidgwick, and published in the Proceed¬ 
ings of the English S. P. R. (vol. vii, p. 183). The 
story is long, and I shall only give the essential 
passages according to Bozzano. 7 

The scene is laid at the village of Swanland, near 
Hull, in England, in a carpenter’s shop, where Mr. 
Bristow served as an apprentice. He relates the 
following: 

On the morning when the phenomena took place I was 
working at the bench next the wall, where I could see 
the movements of my two companions and watch the door. 
Suddenly one of them turned round and called out: “You 
had better keep those blocks of wood and stick to work, 
mates.” We asked him to explain, and he said: “You 
know quite well what I mean; one of you hit me with this 
piece of wood,” and he showed us a piece of wood about 
an inch square. We both protested that we had not 
thrown it; and I for one was quite certain that my other 
companion had never stopped working. The incident was 
being forgotten when, some minutes afterwards, the other 
companion turned round like the first, and shouted to 
me: “ It is you, this time, who threw this piece of wood 
at me!” and he showed me a piece the size of a match¬ 
box. There were two of them accusing me now, and my 
denials counted for nothing, so I laughed and added: 
“Since I did not do it I suppose that if someone was 
aiming at you it is now my turn.’ ’ I had hardly said this 
when a piece hit me on the hip. I called out: “I am 
touched. There is a mystery somewhere; let us see what 
happens!” 

We searched inside and out, but could discover nothing. 
This strange and embarrassing occurrence gave us much 
to talk about, but in the end we set to work again. 


7 Les Phenom&nes de hantise, p. 254. 



CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 303 


I had hardly started when some Venetian blinds, held 
above by beams let into the wall, started shaking with 
such a clatter that it seemed as if they must be broken 
to bits. We thought at once, “Somebody is up there.” 
I seized a ladder, rushed up and craned my neck, but 
found that the blinds were immovable and covered with 
a layer of dust and cobwebs. As I descended and found 
myself with my head on a level with the beams, I saw 
a small piece of wood two fingers thick hop forward on 
a plank, and with a final bound of two feet, pass close 
to my ear. Dumbfounded, I jumped to earth, and then 
I said: '“This is nothing to laugh at. There is some¬ 
thing supernatural. What do you say ? ’ ’ One of my com¬ 
panions agreed with me, the other still maintained that 
somebody was making fun of us. During this little dis¬ 
pute, a bit of wood from the entrance end of the work¬ 
shop flew and hit him on his hat. I shall never forget the 
sheepish look on his face. 

From time to time a piece of wood just cut and fallen 
upon the floor jumped up on the benches and started a 
dance amidst the tools. And it is remarkable that in spite 
of innumerable attempts we could never catch a piece in 
movement, for it cleverly eluded all our stratagems. They 
seemed animated and intelligent. 

I remember a piece which jumped from the bench on 
to an easel standing three yards away, whence it bounded 
on to another piece of furniture, then into a corner of 
the shop, where it stopped. Another traversed the shop 
like an arrow at the level of three feet above the 
ground. 

Immediately afterwards a piece took a flight with a 
wavy motion. Another went in a slanting line and then 
alighted quickly at my feet. While the chief of the works, 
Mr. Clark, was explaining the details of a drawing, and 
we were both holding our fingers on it in such a way that 
between our fingers there was a distance of rather less than 
an inch, a pointed piece of wood passed between our two 
fingers and hit the table. 

This state of things continued with more or less in¬ 
tensity during six weeks, and always in broad daylight. 


304 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Sometimes there was comparative quiet for a day or two, 
during which one or two manifestations occurred, but then 
followed days of extraordinary activity, as if they wanted 
to make up for the time lost. In one of these periods, 
while a workman was repairing a Venetian shutter on 
the bench next to mine, I saw a piece of wood about 6 
inches square and 1 inch thick rise up and describe three- 
quarters of a large circle in the air and then hit the shut¬ 
ter with some force just at the spot at which the man 
was working. It was the largest piece of wood which I 
have seen in the air. Most of them were no larger than 
an ordinary box of matches, though they were of various 
shapes. The last flying piece that I saw was of oak and 
about 2 Y 2 inches square and 1 inch thick. It fell on me 
from the far corner of the ceiling, and described in its 
course a screw line like a spiral staircase of about 20 
inches diameter. It is necessary to add that all these 
objects, without exception, came from the interior of the 
shop, and that not one came in by the door. 

One of the strangest peculiarities of the manifestations 
consisted in this, that the pieces of wood cut by us and 
fallen on the ground worked their way into the corners 
of the shop, from where they raised themselves to the 
ceiling in some mysterious and invisible manner. None 
of the workmen, none of the visitors, who flocked there 
in great numbers during the six weeks of these mani¬ 
festations, ever saw a single piece in the act of rising. And 
yet the pieces of wood, in spite of our vigilance, quickly 
found their way up in order to fall on us from a place 
where nothing existed a moment before. By degrees we 
got used to the thing, and the movements of the pieces 
of wood, which seemed to be alive and in some cases even 
intelligent, no longer surprised us and hardly attracted 
our attention. 

In reply to a question of Myers, Mr. Bristow 
wrote on July 19, 1891: 

There was no connection between the manifestations 
and the people concerned. The workmen of the shop often 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 305 


worked in private houses, and the three of ns, who were 
present the first day of the manifestations, worked re¬ 
peatedly and alternately outside during the period that 
they took place, and more than once we were all absent. 
It was the same in the case of the other workmen, who 
were all absent successively during the six weeks’ haunt¬ 
ing. In spite of that the phenomena never ceased. 

Except in some special cases, the projectiles fell and hit 
without any noise, although they came at such a speed 
that in normal conditions they would have produced a 
fairly loud clatter. 

Nobody ever saw a missile at the time it started. One 
would have said that they could not be perceived until 
they had travelled at least six inches from their starting- 
point. Which brings one to the consideration of another 
aspect of the mystery—namely, that the missiles only 
moved when nobody was looking and when they were 
least expected. 8 Now and again one of us would watch 
a piece of wood closely for a good number of minutes and 
the piece would not budge; but if the observer stopped 
looking at it, this same piece would jump on us. . . . We 
were never able to make sure whether the pieces began 
their flight invisibly, or whether, on the contrary, they 
profited by a moment’s distraction on our part. Some¬ 
times the direction taken by the projectiles was a straight 
line, but more often it was undulating, rotatory, spiral, 
serpentine, or jerky. 

. . . Numerous visitors were profoundly impressed by 
the manifestations, but the one who was most struck was 
Mr. John Gray, for a particular reason. 

He had lost a brother, who died in financial difficulties. 
This brother had left a son, named John Gray like his 
uncle, who was taken into the shop as an apprentice, but 
who died shortly after of consumption. In the district 
it was said that his father’s creditors had not received all 
the money due to them (about £100), and that the uncle 

s This is not a unique case. There are other examples to be 
seen in La Magie, of Charles Du Prel (i, p. 232)—projectiles be¬ 
coming visible only at the moment when they arrive. That is a 
fact often noticed in these phenomena, as inexplicable as the rest, 
and which the sceptics make the most of without scruple. 



306 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


was responsible for this. Further, it came to be known 
that the last wish of the nephew had been that his uncle 
would pay his father’s debts. The uncle did not, however, 
grant the desire of the dead boy. 

I can testify personally, adds Mr. Bristow, to the ex¬ 
cessive fear with which he was seized when the manifesta¬ 
tions broke out. One day he made me go with him to do 
certain work, and on the way he began to speak to me 
about the phenomena, apparently wanting to hear me say 
that they could be explained on natural grounds. His 
behaviour was that of a man petrified with terror, and I 
felt sure that he had made personal observations on his 
own account of which he did not speak. 

One day we heard that he had paid his brother’s credi¬ 
tors: the manifestations stopped immediately. No tomb¬ 
stone had been put on the grave of the nephew, but when 
the phenomena began, the uncle hastened to accomplish 
this duty also; the stone is still in the Swanland cemetery, 
and one can read there the name of John Gray, died at the 
age of twenty-two years, January 5, 1849. 

I have published this very curious observation in 
details in spite of its length, because they are really 
instructive from all points of view. I may add, with 
Myers: 

We do not find in this case any intellectual manifesta¬ 
tion, but only the projection of pieces of wood in all di¬ 
rections by intentional acts, with the object of attracting 
attention without causing harm to anyone. The eyewit¬ 
nesses agree in regarding them as provoked by a deceased 
person with the wish of attracting the attention of a living 
person and inducing him to pay a debt of conscience. The 
end was gained. If we consider this point of view 
plausible, and if we take concomitant proofs of another 
kind into account, we must admit that the apparent in¬ 
definiteness and horrid absurdity of the manifestations 
do not constitute an objection, because nobody knows what 
powers are possessed by a discarnate entity. In any case, 
it is certain that the movements of objects as effected 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 307 


had a connection with the trade practised in life by the 
supposed agent, and the testimony goes to show that the 
acts were efficacious for attaining the desired end. It is 
also very remarkable that the manifestations seem to have 
been independent of the presence of particular persons. 
Such observations, judiciously pursued, have shown how 
well-founded is the hypothesis of the intervention of dis- 
carnate intelligences in certain material manifestations, 
however commonplace they appear to be. 

This interpretation is quite admissible. It agrees 
with what we concluded above: (1) That invisible 
beings exist; (2) that they may be human beings 
formerly alive; (3) that they may not be very dif¬ 
ferent from what they were in life. 

The forces in action are not unconscious, like 
gravitation, weight, or heat; they are thinking 
forces, acting intentionally. The proofs here col¬ 
lected are numerous and demonstrative. 

We saw that in the haunted castle of Calvados 
the lady of the house, hearing movements in the 
haunted room, where all the furniture moved and 
loud noises shook the walls, wanted to go into the 
room, and put forth her right hand to open the door, 
when she saw the key detach itself, turn in the lock, 
and hit her left hand a blow so hard that its trace 
could be seen for two days. She had a witness with 
her, the clerical instructor of her son. It was 
Wednesday, December 29, 1875. 

That is a clear observation. No illusion, any 
more than in the case of the various missiles thrown 
through narrow apertures (pp. 83, 86, and else¬ 
where; see La Mystique, by Gorres, vol. iii, p. 361). 
Bishop Guillaume d’Auvergne said, in the thir¬ 
teenth century, that stones thrown in haunting 
rarely hurt anyone (see also Mystique, iii, p. 351, 
for 1746; and Carre de Montgeron, La Verite des 
Miracles du Diacre, Paris). These proofs of the 


308 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


intelligent acts of the Invisibles are so well known 
that it is childish to insist npon them. 

We have seen passing before our eyes a number 
of cool-headed observations for which there is no 
normal explanation. Another example, certified by 
authentic attestations, and dating from 1882 to 
1889, is one recorded with confirmations by the Lon¬ 
don S. P. R., and published in Myers’s great work, 
Human Personality, published in 1904. Here is a 
summary of it: 

Captain Morton’s family came to inhabit in 1882 a 
house built in 1860, which was first occupied for sixteen 
years by an Anglo-Indian, then by an old man, and was 
then unoccupied. One evening the Captain’s daughter, 
Miss Morton, heard a noise near her door, and believing 
it was her mother, she opened it. She did not see her, 
but on looking in the passage she saw near the staircase 
a tall woman dressed in black. The unknown woman was 
afterwards seen by the whole family, Miss Morton’s three 
sisters, the father, a little boy, and the servant, and per¬ 
ceived by the dogs, who whined. On enquiry it was found 
that the phantom was that of the Anglo-Indian’s second 
wife, who drank and often quarrelled with him, then sep¬ 
arated and went to live elsewhere, and died in 1878. Be¬ 
tween 1882 and 1884 Miss Morton saw the phantom six 
times. One of her sisters saw it during the summer of 
1882 and thought it was a nun. In the autumn of 1883 
the servant met it. In December of the same year Miss 
Morton’s father and a little boy noticed it in the dining¬ 
room. On January 29, 1884, Miss Morton spoke to the 
phantom for the first time; but it did not reply, and 
seemed to be deaf. She often tried to touch it, but it 
always moved away. In the night its steps were heard, 
very lightly. In fact, it appeared to inhabit the house 
without wishing for anything, and finally they got ac¬ 
customed to it. Some twenty people saw it. Efforts were 
made to photograph it, but were unsuccessful. Loud noises 
were heard from time to time. But let us tell the story. 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 309 


Mr. S., a land-owner, lost his wife, whom he loved pas¬ 
sionately. In order to drown his grief to took to drink. 
Two years later he married again. His second wife hoped 
at first to get him to give np his habit of intemperance, 
but she herself succumbed to it and took to drink also, 
which resulted in a very stormy married life, constantly 
troubled by quarrels which degenerated into violent scenes. 
Some months before the death of Mr. S., on July 14, 1876, 
his wife separated from him and went to live at Clifton. 
She was absent at the time of his death, and it seems that 
she never returned to the house. She herself died on 
September 23, 1878. 

After the death of Mr. S., his house was bought by a 
man of a certain age, who died less than six months after. 
The dwelling then remained empty for several years. 

My father acquired the house in 1882. Our family is 
numerous, I have four sisters and two brothers. I was 
nineteen at that time. Not one among us had ever heard 
anything about the house being abnormal. The removal 
took place towards the end of April, and it was not until 
the following June that I saw the first apparition. 

Having gone into my room, I heard someone at the door 
before going into bed. I went to see who it was, thinking 
it might be my mother. Nobody. Taking a few steps down 
the corridor, I saw the figure of a tall woman, dressed 
in a black woollen gown, who made hardly a sound in 
walking; her face was hidden by a handkerchief held in 
her right hand. The left hand was partly hidden in a 
wide sleeve on which was a black armlet characteristic 
of a widow’s mourning. She wore no hat, but on her 
head there was something black which seemed like a bon¬ 
net covered with a veil. I was not able to observe any¬ 
thing else, but on several occasions I succeeded in seeing 
a part of her forehead and hair. 

In the two following years—between 1882 and 1884— 
I saw the figure five or six times. 

Several times I followed her. Generally, she went down¬ 
stairs, entered the small sitting-room, and remained stand¬ 
ing in the right corner of the veranda where she stayed 
for some time. Then she retraced her steps and proceeded 


310 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


along the passage up to the garden door where she sud¬ 
denly disappeared. 

The first time that I spoke to her was on January 29, 
1884. As I mentioned it two days later in a letter to a 
friend, I quote this passage of my letter: “I softly opened 
the door of the sitting-room and entered at the same time 
as the figure. The latter, however, got before me and 
went near the sofa where she stayed motionless. I ad¬ 
vanced immediately and asked her in what way I could 
be useful to her. At these words she trembled slightly 
and seemed about to speak, but she only uttered a light 
sigh. She then went towards the door. When she ar¬ 
rived at the threshold I renewed my request, without re¬ 
sult. She went into the drawing-room and proceeded as 
far as the garden door, where she disappeared. . . .” 

On other occasions I tried to touch her, in vain, for she 
avoided me in a curious manner: not that she was im¬ 
palpable, but she seemed always to be out of my reach. 
If I pursued her into a corner she suddenly disappeared. 

The apparitions attained the greatest frequency during 
the months of July and August, 1884, after which they 
began to decrease. I kept a record of these two months 
in a collection of letters—a diary which I addressed to 
a friend. I take from it this passage, bearing the date, 
July 21: 

“It was nine o’clock in the evening and I was sitting 
with my father and sisters in the small sitting-room, near 
the veranda. While I was reading, I saw the form enter 
by the open door, cross the room and come and stand 
behind my chair. I was astonished that nobody present 
saw it when I could see so clearly. My brother, who had 
seen it before, was not in the room. The figure stayed 
behind my chair for about half an hour, afterwards mov¬ 
ing towards the door. I followed it under the pretext 
of going to look for a book, and I saw it cross the room, 
go towards the garden door and disappear on arriving 
there. When she got to the foot of the staircase, I spoke 
to her without receiving any answer, although, like the 
first time, she seemed to tremble and wish to speak.” 

During the night of August 2 the sound of footsteps 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 311 


was heard by my three sisters and the cook, who slept 
on the upper floor, and by our married sister, Mrs. K., 
who was on the second floor. In the morning’ they all 
related how they had heard footsteps of someone who came 
and went past their doors. They were characteristic steps, 
quite different from those of any member of the family; 
they sounded slow and light but firm. My sisters and the 
maids were afraid to go out when they heard them. 

On August 12, towards eight o’clock in the evening 
(so it was still daylight), my sister E. was practising her 
singing, when she stopped abruptly and ran into the draw¬ 
ing-room to tell me that, while she was at the piano, she 
had suddenly perceived the figure at her side. We went 
into the room. She was there, motionless, standing in the 
usual corner of the veranda. I spoke to her, for the third 
time, but still without result. She stayed there for about 
ten minutes, after which she crossed the room, passed into 
the passage, went as far as the garden door and disap¬ 
peared. 

A moment after, my sister M. came in from the garden 
calling out that she had seen the form go up the steps 
outside the kitchen. We all went out into the garden, 
and my sister K., who was at the window, called out that 
she had seen her cross the lawn and go towards the kitchen- 
garden. That evening there were four of us to see her. 

I will observe that, if we made arrangements to watch 
for the apparition at the times when we expected it to 
manifest itself, our expectations were invariably disap¬ 
pointed. 

During the rest of the year 1884, and that which fol¬ 
lowed, the apparition continued to show itself often, 
especially in the months of July, August, and September, 
in which occurred the date of the three deaths: that of 
Mr. S. (July 14), that of his first wife (August), and 
that of the second (September 23). Everybody saw the 
same sort of apparition, passing several times in the same 
places. 

Up to the year 1886 it appeared to be so solid and real 
that it could have been taken for a living person, but 
after that it began to be less and less distinct, although 


312 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


right till the end it intercepted light. There was no op¬ 
portunity of observing whether it cast a shadow. 

Several times, before going to bed, and after the other 
members of the family had retired for the night, I fixed 
some very fine threads across the staircase, placing them 
at various heights. 10 

I fastened them on each side with small lumps of paste, 
in such a way that a very slight push was sufficient to 
make them fall without the passer-by being aware of 
them, and so that they could not be noticed by the light 
from a candle. Twice I saw the form pass through the 
threads, which remained intact. 

We came to the conclusion that the apparition was con¬ 
nected with Mr. S.’s second wife, for these reasons: 

1. The history of the house was quite well known, and 
if the mysterious form had to be identified with any of its 
former inhabitants, Mrs. S. was the only person who re¬ 
sembled the phantom. 

2. The phantom appeared dressed in mourning, which 
could not apply to Mr. S.’s first wife. 

3. Several people who knew the second Mrs. S. also 
identified her with the phantom we saw. I also saw a 
photograph album from which I picked out a photograph 
as showing the greatest resemblance to the form I had 
seen. It was a photograph of her sister, who, according 
to people who knew both, was very much like her. 

4. Her daughter-in-law, as well as other people who 
had known her, told us she spent her days in the small 
sitting-room where she appeared so often, and usually just 
in the corner of the veranda where she stopped. 

The accounts of the other witnesses all agree with Miss 
Morton’s account, and it appears that the phantom al¬ 
ways took the attitude of a woman prostrated by grief 
and weeping, with her face partly covered by a handker¬ 
chief held in her right hand. 

The Proceedings of the London 8 . P . B., from 
which this account is taken, and the strict enquiries 


io Same observation made at Strassburg in 1855. 



CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 313 


of Myers published there and in his great work on 
Human Personality render its authority incon¬ 
testable. The hypothesis of a collective hallucina¬ 
tion of eight persons independently of each other 
—and of two dogs—is quite simply absurd. Eyes 
and ears perceived the apparition. Its reality is as 
certain as that of the Obelisk on the Place de la 
Concorde. 

Here is a case of a haunted house not less worthy 
of attention than the preceding ones. It was made 
by a group of children who had no idea of the im¬ 
portance of our problem, by the servants of the 
house, and by a man of solid sense who only ac¬ 
cepted the fact with the greatest reluctance. Gur¬ 
ney devoted a close study to this curious manifesta¬ 
tion, and published it in the Proceedings of the 
8. P. R . (vol. iii, p. 126), as did Bozzano in his 
Phenomenes de hantise, p. 86. The occurrence 
took place in 1854, and a report was made on it at 
the time, with all the details of this remarkable ap¬ 
parition. This is the account written by Miss Mary 
E. Vatas-Simpson: 

I have a very clear recollection of an old lady who ap¬ 
peared to us when we were children (I was the eldest 
and had a little sister and several little brothers), and 
it was the greatest trial of our childhood, first because 
the lady was a mystery to us, and then because she brought 
down upon us some severe paternal scoldings. 

We lived in a very ancient house, with the dining-room 
on the top floor, with three windows, and two doors fac¬ 
ing the windows. The staircase was narrow and the steps 
were very high, with frequent landings, from which we 
loved to lean down to see what was going on below, es¬ 
pecially if the servants brought any visitor into the draw¬ 
ing-room. 

One day when I was leaning over at one of our posts 
of observation, I saw a very frail old lady come slowly up 


314 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


the stairs and enter the drawing-room alone. It sur¬ 
prised me greatly, because the free passage of the stairs 
was interrupted by a supplementary door separating my 
father’s study from the offices in the ground floor, so that 
persons wishing to enter had to ring, as at the front door. 
Now I had seen the old lady come up the stairs on this 
side of the door, though nobody opened it. There was a 
whispered conversation between me and my brother Wal¬ 
ter, who was sitting astride on the upper banisters, and 
we resolved to go and see who the intruder was. We 
went quietly down to the drawing-room, feeling sure of 
finding the lady there, and were greatly disillusioned when 
we found nobody there. I came back on tiptoe, knowing 
that we were forbidden to go into the drawing-room; but 
as I went up the stairs again I gave a cry of astonish¬ 
ment because I saw the old lady pass out, by a door which 
was always closed, on the landing where I had been a 
short time before. I went back to the drawing-room to 
tell Walter and then went to watch on the landing, and 
saw the lady going slowly, having passed the door at the 
foot of the stairs. Just as she turned and disappeared 
from our view our father rushed out of his study and 
chastised us for the talking and the noise we had made. 

Some days afterwards we were busy with our favourite 
game, which consisted in reversing two chairs, which rep¬ 
resented a post-chaise in which we sat, and putting a rug 
over our heads to represent the roof. At one moment 
my brother Garry hurt me, and I revenged myself by 
throwing the rug into the air. The first thing I saw 
was the old lady, dressed the same as before, a very worn 
black garment, a velvet cape on her shoulders, and a big 
bonnet on her head. I thought that she wanted to go 
into my father’s study and had gone too far by mistake; 
but she continued on her way up. I ran up to catch her 
in the passage, but saw her no more. Then I ran on to 
the landing and down the stairs, where I met Walter, who 
ran after the old lady who was just quickly going down 
the stairs and keeping close to the wall. But in the mid¬ 
dle of our pursuit my father came out of his study and 
threatened to beat Walter if the noise did not stop. 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 315 


We then asked the servants for some information about 
the old lady, and saw them making mysterious signs to 
each other, and explained to us afterwards that it was an 
old lady come to see Mama. 

Though we saw her often, and were not in the least 
afraid of her, it seemed that nobody wanted to believe us, 
and we spoke of her often between ourselves, but never 
with grown-ups. But we took our precautions, and when 
we played “post” a postilion was placed outside to give 
us warning as soon as she came. She had seemed to look 
at us too insistently, and we thought that if she surprised 
us with our heads under the rug she would do us some 
terrible harm. And under the rug we also concealed a 
defensive weapon in the shape of a heavy ruler to throw 
at her if she dared to touch us. 

It is clear from all this that we took the phantom for 
a real person, and in spite of the long years which have 
passed, I still have a very vivid recollection of her and 
seem still to see her. 

(Sg.) Mary E. Vatas-Simpson. 

Here the text gives long quotations from Mrs. 
Vatas-Simpson’s diary, and we learn that, besides 
the phantom of the old lady, another phantom, that 
of an old man, was also seen, and that noises of all 
sorts were heard. The house was very old and was 
reputed to he haunted. A family who had previ¬ 
ously lived there had left on account of the noises in 
the night, which awakened and frightened the chil¬ 
dren. 

Here is a significant passage of the diary in ques¬ 
tion: 

My husband was very incredulous about all this. But 
last night his unreasoning incredulity received a great 
shock, for he saw the phantom himself and felt a terror 
quite unknown to him before. This is what happened 
to him: 

In consequence of his recent illness, heaps of letters and 
documents had accumulated on his desk. He resolved to 


316 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


devote the evening hours to the task of going through his 
correspondence and classifying the documents, giving the 
servants strict orders not to admit anybody and not to 
disturb him in any way. For my part, I took all the 
measures necessary to assure him absolute quiet. 

Last night, then, when the house was perfectly quiet, 
my husband had gone to his study after dinner, and had 
not come out when eleven struck. I was sitting in the 
drawing-room with the door open, as I usually did when 
I was alone. Suddenly I heard a noise in the direction 
of the study, I heard the door open and heard my husband 
furiously denouncing the servants for allowing a stranger 
to enter his study. Who had contravened his orders? He 
was told that nobody had, and he said: “Don’t deny 
it. Where is the woman? When did she come? What 
does she want? I receive nobody at night. Let her come 
to-morrow if it pleases her. Now show her the door.” 

All this was said as if the intruder were still in the 
house, and with the intention of making her hear. Mean¬ 
while the servants were protesting that they had not shown 
in anybody, and had seen nobody go up or down stairs. 
Suddenly my husband’s face changed. He said no more 
and stood motionless. He seemed remote from all ex¬ 
ternal expressions, as if he had been struck with a stupor 
or confusion. Then he pulled himself together. He seemed 
to shudder, and, stepping forward a few paces, he ordered 
the servants to go to bed, saying that in the morning he 
would find out who had taken the liberty of showing a 
woman into his study. And if the woman came again he 
would ask her. 

He said these words to hide his thoughts, for he spoke 
very differently when we were alone. He told me that 
when he was looking among his papers for a very im¬ 
portant document, and was much preoccupied, he had 
happened to raise his eyes, and had seen a frail little old 
lady on the threshold. Though she came at an incon¬ 
venient time he did not fail in courtesy, but got up and 
asked her to come in. Seeing that she did not move or 
speak, and only kept looking at him, he advanced to re¬ 
peat the invitation. But the lady remained silent and 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 317 


immobile, and seemed to regard him with a sad expres¬ 
sion. Thinking that she was out of breath from mounting 
the stairs, my husband waited some time, but since no 
reply came he came forward, the lady imitating him with 
a gliding movement. The room being large, there was 
always some distance between them, and my husband took 
several steps towards her. At last he walked resolutely 
forward, decided to probe the mystery of the silence. But 
then he saw her no more. She had disappeared! 

Having proceeded to that point, my husband paused 
and fell into a profound meditation. He seemed ex¬ 
tremely agitated, and his lips trembled. He was evidently 
making a supreme effort to master his emotion. After 
some time he seemed to awaken from a dream and con¬ 
cluded his narrative. 

He said his study was brightly lighted with the gas 
lights, and that he did not remember the door opening 
when the phantom appeared, nor when it disappeared, 
while he was certain he had shut it on entering the room. 
He had never thought he was face to face with a phan¬ 
tom. He had taken the lady for a person in grave diffi¬ 
culty, who had come to consult him, and the urgency of 
her motives, and her advanced age had seemed to him 
sufficient excuse for the unreasonable hour at which she 
presented herself. These considerations had led him to 
receive her with deference. But her inexplicable dumb¬ 
ness had finally irritated him, and he had made her un¬ 
derstand that by his voice and gesture. He described 
the phantom in these terms: “It was an old lady, small 
and frail, very pale, dressed in dark garments, with a 
large bonnet on her head, tied under the chin, and the 
hands always crossed.’’ She had come forward with a 
soft gliding motion, had always looked him in the face, 
and had never moved her hands. 

Then he summed up his impressions: “I have told you 
what happened exactly. I cannot doubt what I have seen. 
I admit I cannot explain it, so let us not talk about it.” 
I am sure he will no longer laugh at our “absurd visions 
of ghosts.” Indeed, he is so much struck that he does 
not know what to think. Much time will pass before he 


318 HAUNTED HOUSES 

forgets the visit of the “pale little old lady” who often 
visits ns. 

That is Gurney’s story. This multiple observa¬ 
tion, first made by children, discourages, if it does 
not entirely suppress, the hypothesis of hallucina¬ 
tion, an hypothesis which I know in all its forms, for 
I always have the classical work of Briere de Bois- 
mont on my table. Who was this singular person? 
Everything leads us to believe that it was a deceased 
lady who had lived in the house. Let us seek an¬ 
other hypothesis to accord with the facts! 

We can apply to this apparition what we said 
above about the Morton family: “It is as certain 
as is the existence of the Obelisk on the Place de la 
Concorde.” 

Let us admit without reserve that we are here in 
the realm of complete mystery, as we were in the 
case of the haunted castle of Calvados and all our 
other examples. Let us admit that we know noth¬ 
ing, and that it is permitted to be curious and to 
want to know. This is worth all the fantastic ro¬ 
mances published every day, generally on the same 
fascinating subject. 

Nothing must be affirmed but what is surely ob¬ 
served. But it is neither reasonable nor honest 
to refuse to recognise a verified reality on any pre¬ 
text whatever. 

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published in 1919 a re¬ 
markable book called The New Revelation, in which 
he tells that, as a member of the Psychical Research 
Society, he was sent with two other delegates to 
pass a night in a haunted house. There we have 
another personal observation. Incomprehensible 
noises and blows were heard, recalling the story of 
the family of John Wesley at Epworth in 1726, 
and of the Fox family at Hydesville in 1848, which 
was the foundation of modern Spiritualism. 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 319 


The result of this enquiry was the observation 
of phenomena corresponding to those described in 
this work and their nrobable connection with a burial 
preceding them. 

How many problems there are besides those pre¬ 
sented by the ghosts of the departed! 

All the entities, all the forces, all the invisible 
causes, all the spirits which reveal themselves in 
any way in the numerous phenomena which we are 
studying, are not necessarily the souls of the dead. 
Apart from the fact that the souls of the living can 
externalise themselves, and that we can ourselves 
sometimes act unconsciously, we are surrounded by 
psychic elements, both known and unknown. Does 
the very curious observation which follows denote 
an action of the living, the realisation of a wish or 
a determination, or does it denote the action of the 
dead person concerned? Appearances are in favour 
of this last interpretation. Let us weigh everything 
in absolute liberty and without prejudice. 

What is the part played by our human organism 
in metapsychic phenomena? 

I have already announced (Death and Its Mys¬ 
tery, vol. iii, p. 351) an observation by M. Oscar 
Belgeonne, Secretary to the Bench of Antwerp in 
the Court of Summary Jurisdiction, an observation 
which the abundance of material prevented my in¬ 
serting in that volume and which I had to reserve 
for this. This case is interesting from the point of 
view of the question just raised. Here it is (Let¬ 
ter 4,421, of April 5, 1921): 

I had had over twelve years in the service of the Ad¬ 
ministration which I am still serving. One day some 
friends came and offered me an important and highly 
paid post in a private organisation. They strongly in¬ 
sisted on my immediate acceptance, as the matter was 


320 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


urgent. In order to speed my decision, they sent one of 
my intimate friends with a mission to convince me. I 
asked for twenty-four hours. 

That night there was a bitter frost. I had had a long 
walk through almost deserted parts of Antwerp, and all 
the way I had weighed the pros and cons of the position 
offered. I went home about 11.15 p.m., and found sitting 
in the kitchen two of my sisters, who were reading while 
waiting for me. They told me that as the fires had gone 
out in the dining-room and on the veranda they had shut 
all the doors and had settled in the kitchen by the blaz¬ 
ing fire. They knew that the offer I had received con¬ 
cerned my whole future, and they wished to know my 
decision. 

All three of us were seated by a table moved against 
the wall. Our faces were towards the fire. A shelf was 
fixed to the wall beside the fireplace. Kitchen utensils 
were upon the board, and two inches below was a lath 
holding some hooks, from one of which hung a towel by 
a loop of cord. 

Nobody was walking about the room. There was not, 
and there could not be, the trace of a draught. 

We discussed the question which occupied me so in¬ 
tensely. My sisters did not wish to influence me. I was 
perplexed. What was I to do? The future depended 
on my decision. 

“If only,” said one of my sisters, “we could consult 
somebody.” 

“Or if father was still alive,” I added, “he would give 
me good advice.” 

At the name of our father, who was all goodness and 
honesty, everyone became pensive and silent. 

After some time I said again: “Should I accept?” 

Suddenly the towel began to swing on its screw as on 
a pivot, to the right and left, all in one piece, not as if 
moved by a draught, but without a fold stirring, as if it 
were rigid and someone had, by light friction on the loop 
with his fingers, given it a pendulous motion to the right 
and left. 

The towel said “No.” Nothing more. 


CLASSIFICATION OF PHENOMENA 321 


We had all seen it. It was so sudden, so uexpected, 
so very much to the point, so manifestly due to an in¬ 
visible force, that my sisters’ eyes were full of tears and 
I felt a sort of shudder. 

I accepted the advice. And now, after nine years, I can 
only congratulate myself that I took the hint. The war 
has changed matters a good deal. It was in 1912. The 
organisation which had offered me the important employ¬ 
ment no longer exists. Had I accepted, I should now 
be without a job. 

I should be glad if the facts I report to you, and which 
I declare on my honour to be absolutely authentic, could 
be of some use towards the scientific monument you are 
building with such competence and impartiality. 

(Sg.) 0. Belgeonne. 

Parquet d'Anvers. 

In a further letter of the following May 14, M. 
Belgeonne adds: 

What I note with the greatest interest is that the “force” 
which by means of the towel (perhaps the only means 
at its disposal) gave me an adequate answer to my question 
saw into the future. 

What was that force? How did it foresee? Is it not 
similar to the force which one day at Folkestone during 
the war rapped on a piece of furniture and made me ar¬ 
rive in time to prevent a fire? I have already reported 
this to you. 

I admit that my first impression on reading this 
narrative was that of a rather forced interpreta¬ 
tion of a rather trivial and almost ridiculous in¬ 
cident. But a man accustomed to juridical dis¬ 
cussions is not a nobody. The simplest thing to 
suppose would be an illusion. This I shall not 
presume to adopt, in the presence of the concordant 
testimony of three witnesses. And, after all, is 
this swinging of a towel more ridiculous than the 
agitation of Galvani’s frogs’ legs? We can still 


322 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


ask if it is not M. Belgeonne’s subconscious self 
which was in action. But how? To move an object 
without knowing or expecting it ? Let us admit that 
the problem is not solved. 

In the course of the enquiry which the narrator 
kindly allowed me to make, I obtained from Ant¬ 
werp a certain number of official documents con¬ 
cerning the death of the elder M. Belgeonne (Feb¬ 
ruary 3, 1900, at the age of sixty-seven), and the 
separate attestations of the sisters, as well as sev¬ 
eral writings to elucidate the problem. The theory 
of an action by the deceased, whose paternal affec¬ 
tion was known to his children, remains a possible 
one. Let us go on studying and comparing . Let us 
not forget that it was by means of comparative 
anatomy that Cuvier made his palaeontological dis¬ 
coveries. 

I have constantly expressed my surprise and re¬ 
gret to see the communications of the dead so in¬ 
significant and their manifestations so trivial, and 
our adversaries have relentlessly turned this trivi¬ 
ality and insignificance against me. But is not sin¬ 
cerity the first requisite? We are studying and 
verifying and searching. We should (and I should 
certainly) prefer having more revelations concern¬ 
ing the spiritual life and other worlds. If the result 
of our studies is that certain souls do not communi¬ 
cate and that there are only fragmentary acts in 
these manifestations, imperfect echoes of spirits 
bound to earth, or even unconscious personal pro¬ 
ductions, we could but register the fact frankly. 
There is everything to learn. Truth above all. 


CHAPTER XI 


HAUNTING PHENOMENA NOT ATTRIBUTABLE TO 
THE DEAD. RAPPING SPIRITS. POLTERGEISTS 

I N the previous chapter we collected a certain 
number of cases showing an association of the 
phenomenon with the dead, cases which a more 
or less definite object indicates intentions or prom¬ 
ises awaiting fulfilment, and posthumous actions. 
We had noted some of these already in our gen¬ 
eral excursion. At the same time we also found 
the existence of singular phenomena devoid of any 
indication of origin or purpose. We gained the 
impression that these mysterious facts are ex¬ 
tremely varied, that they are far from having the 
same explanation, and that they place us on the 
frontier of a whole new world to explore. In the 
present chapter we shall only deal with phenomena 
not indicating a connection with the dead. I do not 
say, in contrast to the last chapter, “without asso¬ 
ciation with the dead,” for we know nothing about 
that, and the whole extra-terrestrial world remains 
to be studied, so that we must be extremely care¬ 
ful, but say “without any indication of a connec¬ 
tion. ’ ’ 

In our preliminary survey of the subject, in the 
stones thrown in the Rue des Noyers at Paris and 
a certain number of cases, we already saw the ab¬ 
sence of any indication of a psychic order. Nor 
did we see any in the phantasmagoria of phenomena 
of Calvados, nor in the vicarage of the strange 
noises. Though unexpected posthumous intentions 
have been suggested in some cases, it looks as if 
there were something else. 

323 


324 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


For a long time already a whole class of haunting 
phenomena has been collected under the name 
“rapping spirits,” particularly studied in Ger¬ 
many under the name of Poltergeist ( polter, to 
make a commotion; Geist, a spirit), and compris¬ 
ing noises, raps, uproars, various auditions, blows, 
steps, movements, murmurs, sighs, etc., produced 
by indeterminable causes. 1 

In the preliminary survey which we gave above 
(Chapter II), we witnessed the strange phenomena 
of stone-throwing, upsetting of furniture, and were 
stupefied by their vulgar triviality. We asked what 
might be the cause and purpose of such actions. 
The typical examples which followed showed us 
that these phenomena are as varied as they are 
fantastic. 

If there are some which, like those in the last 
chapter, reveal the occult action of the dead, there 
are others, like the following, which seem entirely 
different. They deserve a distinct chapter to them¬ 
selves. What can be their cause? Unknown facul¬ 
ties of the human being, animism, vitalism, non- 
human psychic agents, fragments of the world-soul, 
unknowable entities ? 

We must in these first lines not lose sight of the 
irrefutable verifications published above, such as 
the phenomena of the Rue des Noyers, 1860, in the 
Rues des Gres, 1849, the Ardeche, 1922, in Fives- 
Lille, 1865, the castle of Calvados, 1875, the house 
in Auvergne, the haunted vicarage (p. 161), the 
teacher’s house (p. 173), the broken door of Strass- 
burg (p. 233), and all similar cases, in which no 
source is indicated but anonymous rappers and 
Poltergeists . Let us specially collect here and com- 

iA remarkable technical study of these has been compiled by 
Professor Barrett in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques for May, 
1911, and a more detailed one in Miss Grove’s Night Side of 
Nature , 1849. 



HAUNTING PHENOMENA 


325 


pare some of these cases. The following case, surely 
a very singular one, was sent to me from Cherchell 
(Algeria) on July 17, 1922: 

In 1913, when we lived in Tonkin, my wife and I went 
to take a rest for a few weeks in the town of Mong-Zen 
(Yunan). We lived in an isolated bungalow in a sort of 
camp constituting the French concession, the nearest house 
being twenty yards away. We were accompanied by our 
“boy,” a young Annamite of about sixteen. 

A day or two after our arrival we were startled by a 
formidable noise, which seemed to be outside and vibrat. 
ing through the roof. I thought of a thunderclap. Look¬ 
ing at the sky I found it clear, without a breeze or a 
cloud. But we had found during our stay in Cambodia 
that thunderclaps without wind and without perceptible 
clouds often disturbed the atmosphere, and this observa¬ 
tion duly led me to enquire of my neighbours next morn¬ 
ing, but they had heard neither noise nor thunder. 

Some days after that there was another noise in the 
night. It was impossible to sleep. We passed the night 
waiting for the day, and I had ample opportunity of 
studying the character of the sound. I attributed it to 
a rock detached from the neighbouring mountain, which 
had rolled down, or to a slight earth tremor (so frequent 
in that region). Yet this explanation did not entirely 
satisfy me, for the noise, though very loud, was, so to 
speak, muffled and unique. To carry out my suggestion, 
it would have to be a rock falling flat on level ground, 
which is absurd. Again, nobody in the concession had 
heard anything, and no seismic shock had been registered. 

These two manifestations might have been forgotten if 
a third one of the same kind had not occurred. Again, 
at the same hour of the night, under the same meteoro¬ 
logical conditions of perfect calm, a noise, appalling this 
time, resounded on the roof. In a second we were up, 
and our boy (God knows the Annamities are sound 
sleepers!), who slept in the next room with the door open, 
stood up also, stupefied. 

I thought there would not be a tile left on the roof. 


326 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


I thought of an unexpected cyclone. I went out, but 
found that the house was undisturbed and there was quiet 
everywhere. Seeing a light in the neighbouring house 
I called them and asked: “Did you hear that?” They 
seemed astonished, but said they had been quietly reading 
and had not been disturbed by any noise. 

In view of these circumstances, and after reading the 
various reports on these things, I no longer doubt that 
entities must have haunted that bungalow. 

It was let every year for a month or two to birds of 
passage, and it is therefore difficult to ascertain whether 
previous tenants noticed similar manifestations. The 
sources of these unexplained noises is still to seek. 

(Sg.) Max Roussel 
(Estate Receiver at Cherchell). 

This must have been a subjective phenomenon, 
but how, and why? We see no connection with the 
spirits of the dead. 

There can have been no illusion. Audition is cer¬ 
tain. 

As we saw in our general excursion, these cases 
are numerous and varied, and occur in all coun¬ 
tries. Here is another, even more grotesque than 
the last. 

A mysterious fall of stones, reminding us of that 
described above (p. 78) and observed by the Prot¬ 
estant pastor Laval in the Ardeche, was reported to 
the English S.P.R., and reproduced by Bozzano in 
his Phenomena of Haunting . I give it from a re¬ 
port by Mr. Grottendieck, of Dordrecht, Holland: 

In September, 1903, I happened to witness an abnor¬ 
mal phenomenon which I was able to observe carefully 
in all its details. 

I had succeeded in traversing the jungle from Palem- 
bang to Djambi (Sumatra), with an escort of fifty native 
Javanese, for purposes of exploration. On returning to 
my point of departure I found my usual residence occu- 


HAUNTING PHENOMENA 


327 


pied. I therefore had to take my sleeping-sack to an 
unfinished hut made of beams stuck together and covered 
with large dried leaves plastered over with “Kadjang.” 

I spread out the sleeping-sack on the wooden floor, 
arranged the mosquito-net, and soon went to sleep. About 
1 a.m. I woke up, hearing an object falling near my 
pillow outside the mosquito-net. I looked around and 
saw black pebbles about an inch long. I got up, took the 
lamp from the foot of the bed, and watched. I found 
that stones fell from the ceiling in a parabolic curve and 
fell near my pillow. 

I went into the next room to waken the Malay boy 
who was with me, ordering him to inspect the jungle 
round the hut, and while he did this I helped him by 
lighting up the foliage with an electric lamp. All this 
time the pebbles were falling inside. When the boy came 
back I put him on guard in the kitchen, and in order to 
watch the falling of the pebbles better I knelt by the 
pillow and tried to catch them as they came. But it was 
impossible, for they seemed to jump into the air as I 
grabbed at them. Then I climbed up the palisade and 
examined the roof at the point where they came from. 
I found that they emerged from the layer of Kadjang 
leaves, which, however, had no holes in it. Again I failed 
to seize them up there. 

When I got down, the boy entered and told me that 
nobody was in the kitchen. I was sure some practical 
joker was hiding somewhere, and, taking up my rifle, I 
fired five times from my window into the jungle, with 
the result that in the hut the stones came hailing down 
with greater force than ever. 

But in any case I wakened up the boy completely. Be¬ 
fore the firing he had seemed somnolent. When he saw 
the stones falling he said the Devil was throwing them, 
and was so terrified that he fled into the jungle in the 
night. As he disappeared the stones ceased to fall. But 
the boy disappeared and I lost him for good. The stones 
showed nothing peculiar, except that they seemed rather 
warmer to the touch than usual. 

When day broke I found the stones on the floor, and 


328 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


I found under the window the five cartridges I had fired. 
I again examined the roof but found nothing, not even 
a chink in the leaves where the stones had emerged. Dur¬ 
ing the short time the phenomenon had lasted some twenty 
stones had fallen. I put several in my pocket and kept 
them. I first thought they might be meteoric stones, as 
they were warm to the touch, but how explain that they 
went through the roof without making a hole? 

To conclude: The worst of the adventure for me was 
that the flight of the boy forced me to make my own break¬ 
fast and give up my usual toast and coffee. 

In reply to questions put to him by the Council of 
the S. P. R., Mr. Grottendieck added some particu¬ 
lars, among which we note the following: 

I was alone with the boy in the hut, which was entirely 
surrounded by the jungle. Prom the point of view of fraud, 
the boy is beyond suspicion, for while I was bending over 
him to awaken him (he was sleeping on the floor near my 
door) two stones fell one after the other, and I saw and 
heard them fall, the door being open. 

The stones fell with astonishing slowness, so that even if 
fraud must be assumed, there would still be a mystery to 
explain. It seemed as if they went slowly through the air, 
describing a parabolic curve and hitting the ground with 
force. Even the noise they produced was abnormal, for it 
was too loud relatively to the fall. 

I said the boy had been somnolent up to the moment when 
the shots woke him up, and his state showed itself in his 
abnormally slow movements. He had got up, had gone into 
the jungle and come back in an extraordinary slow manner. 
The slowness of his movements made on me the same strange 
impression as did the slowness of fall of the stones. 

Those are the essential points of Mr. Grotten¬ 
dieck ’s account. 

In another case, which occurred in Sicily in June, 1910, 
in full daylight. Mr. Paolo Palmisano saw stones falling 


HAUNTING PHENOMENA 


329 


slowly without causing any damage, and says that one of 
them, near a place where the young deaf and dumb daugh¬ 
ter of a peasant was sitting, detached itself from the wall, 
and, after describing a slow semicircle in the air, deposited 
itself in the hand of a friend. We looked at each other 
dumbfounded, but the rain of stones continued (Oiornale 
de Sicilia, June 7, 1910). 

In connection with missiles issuing from a point where 
there is no aperture, and their abnormal heat, we must note 
that although these facts are incomprehensible they are 
usual in Poltergeist phenomena. 

We cannot resist these facts. We must note, in the 
three cases of Cherchell, Sumatra, and Sicily, the 
presence of a young and unconscious human being. 

In seeking the causes of these mysterious actions 
we find no indication of activities of the departed, 
and yet there are certain marks of intention, of pur¬ 
pose and intelligence. Have we to deal with in¬ 
visible beings, different from human beings? It 
seems to me that this hypothesis is not necessary. 
If we admit survival there must be millions of medi¬ 
ocre or inferior human spirits capable of amusing 
themselves in this way. 

Amuse themselves! The word may sound strange, 
but it is particularly appropriate to the observations 
in their infinite variety complicated by unexplained 
movements. 

In February, 1913, I received several Belgian 
periodicals, including Le Sinceriste of Antwerp, 
L’fitoile Beige of Brussels, La Fraternite, Le XX me 
Siecle, etc., containing various accounts of a haunted 
house at Marcinelle. The best account of this was 
published in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques 
of 1913 (p. 152). I give it here: 

All the papers of this country have reported the singular 
ease of stone-throwing without known cause produced at 


330 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Marcinelle, near Charleroi, in the house occupied by M. 
Van Zanten, Rue Cesar-de-Paepe. These manifestations, 
which began on Thursday, January 20, ended on Sunday, 
February 2, lasting only four days. They set the local 
police in motion, as well as the gendarmerie. They led to a 
visit by the bench of magistrates, but all these investigations 
remained without result. We visited the place on February 
5. The house is the last of a row of similar ones. Beside 
it, facing the street, is a large, well-wooded garden extend¬ 
ing to the corner of the first crossroad, and surrounding 
the ends of the yards and closes of the small dwellings in 
the line terminated by the Yan Zanten house. 

A little after our arrival we were able to talk with a 
representative of the authority which took a leading part in 
the organisation for watching the house. What had struck 
him most in the circumstances, he said, was the singular 
accuracy of aim, the missiles appearing to hit exactly the 
place chosen by the delinquent. 

‘ 1 1 have seen, ’ ’ he added, ‘ ‘ a stone arriving in the middle 
of a large window-pane, and then came others in a spiral 
round the first point of impact, so that the whole of the 
glass was broken up methodically. I even saw, in another 
window, a projectile caught in the fragments of glass of 
the first hole it made, and subsequently ejected by another 
passing through the same point. 

“The stones, according to our observations, can only 
come from a house situated on the opposite side of the 
quadrilateral, about 150 yards from the target. To obtain 
such accuracy of aim the guilty person must dispose of a 
very powerful and perfectly adjusted catapult.’’ 

I told him that that did not solve the problem. The ob¬ 
jects were said to differ in weight, shape, size, and density, 
so that every missile would have to describe a trajectory 
different from that of the others, on account of differences 
in the resistance of the air. Besides, the wind would notice¬ 
ably deflect the stones to one side or the other. It can be 
said with some assurance that such correct aiming with 
missiles so varied is beyond human ability. 

A few minutes after I had an opportunity of seeing Mr. 
Yan Zanten, who very kindly consented to show me the 


HAUNTING PHENOMENA 


331 


property, the damage done, and the missiles which had 
been preserved. Furthermore, he gave detailed replies to 
the questions I thought necessary to ask. I spoke to him 
first of all about what had been told me by the public 
official. 

“The first fact is perfectly correct,” he replied. “The 
first stone did, indeed, hit this window-pane exactly in the 
middle, and the following ones struck it systematically in a 
spiral round the first hole.” 

But what surprised us most was that not one of the 300 
stones thrown hit anybody. The first day my little boy was 
in the garden and my little girl was sleeping in her cradle 
near an open window on the first floor. They were not 
disturbed in any way. The nurse, it is true, was struck on 
the head by a piece of brick, but she was not much hurt. 
My father-in-law was hit on the arm and cried: “Well, 
I did not feel anything. ’’ 

That is one of the signs, I believe, by which, according 
to the theory, one can distinguish missiles thrown super- 
normally from those by human agency. 

As the servant came back just at that moment, I ques¬ 
tioned her also. It is well known how often one meets in 
haunted houses a person of the feminine sex arrived at the 
age of puberty. This one seemed to me barely fifteen years 
old. The phenomena appeared to have some connection 
with her for they hardly ever began until she was up. She 
showed me the place on her head where the stone had hit 
her; neither chignon nor cap protected this spot. “Were 
you much hurt ? ” I asked. “ Oh! yes, I have been crying 
with the pain during the day.” “However, it did not 
bleed; you have had no swelling or lump?” “No, nothing 
like that.” The projectile was about the size of a quarter 
of a brick. It seems to me very unnatural that it should 
have produced so little effect, coming so far and conse¬ 
quently falling from a height. 

Armed with a search warrant the police of Marcinelle, 
after having gauged the approximate direction of the mis¬ 
siles, visited from top to bottom four houses which they 
vaguely suspected of serving as a base of operations for 
the enemy. 


332 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Nothing was found, and the tenants of the houses in 
question seemed as mystified as Mr. Jacob Van Zenten him¬ 
self. 

Such is the narrative of the Antwerp editor. 

We agree with Bozzano, who also reported this 
case of Marcinelle, that we must take into account 
the quantity of missiles sent, which indicates a 
supernormal origin of the phenomena. A human 
operator who threw 300 stones without changing his 
place would have been caught red-handed by the 
police. 

It must also be noted that when projectiles hit 
anybody they did not hurt them or did so much less 
than they would have done normally, while in hit¬ 
ting objects they did damage corresponding to their 
weight and volume. 

The peculiarity is usual in Poltergeist phenomena 
and invites us to admit the existence of a will and 
intention governing the manifestations. These in¬ 
tentional acts suggest another observation on a 
commentary following the Sumatra narrative, in 
which projectiles were said to have described their 
parabola in air with relative slowness. The phe¬ 
nomenon is of theoretical interest, but very rare. 
The missiles are inoffensive to persons, but produce 
their maximum effect in hitting the windows, doors, 
and furniture. 

Cases of this kind occur to some extent every¬ 
where. Professor Perty, of Berne University, pub¬ 
lished in 1863 a little work 2 on the haunted houses 
of Councillor Joller of Niederdorf, near Stans, can¬ 
ton Unterwalden. Here is a summary of it: 3 


2 Die Mystischen Erscheinungen der Mensohlichen Natur. 

s Annales des Sciences Psychiques , 1895, p. 94. See also C. Richet, 
TraitS de Metapsychique, p. 744, and Bozzano, Les PhenomSnes de 
hantise , p. 261. 



HAUNTING PHENOMENA 


333 


In the middle of August, 1862, from the 15th to the 27th, 
tables and chairs were upset by invisible hands. Raps 
came on the doors and floor, doors opened and shut of their 
own accord. Finally the noise became appalling, bolts gave 
way, and the demolition of the house was feared. To per¬ 
sons in the room the noise seemed to come from the cellar 
under the floor. To those in the cellar they seemed to come 
from above. At the same time blows were struck as with 
a hammer on tables and chairs. In spite of the most careful 
searching, no visible cause could be found for all this. Yet 
a few days later a Lucerne paper, Der Eidgenoss, alleged 
that the most palpable explanation had been discovered: 
rapping instruments had been found which made the noise 
for the purpose of depreciating the house and inducing its 
owner to sell it for a song. 

Councillor Joller replied to this unfounded allegation in 
Der Bund of September 4, declaring categorically that this 
strange phenomenon, in spite of the official inquiry and the 
measures taken, could not be reduced to any rational cause. 
The uproar continued, concentrating on a smaller circle, 
until August 27, and then ceased for a time. 

For a numerous family those were days of terror which 
had cruel consequences. 

The sceptics pretended to give a mechanical explanation, 
and the religious suspected the work of the Devil. The 
occurrence made a great deal of noise in the Press, and, as 
always, there was talk of illusion and trickery. In the 
Allgemeine Zeitung of September 28, a Berne correspond¬ 
ent said the last word had been spoken; the cause of the 
uproar was Mr. Joller’s son, aged eighteen. He had, among 
his Bohemian friends, learnt all sorts of tricks, and had 
practised this one to frighten his people and amuse him¬ 
self. In reply to my enquiry, Mr. Joller wrote to me as 
follows on October 2: 

“In reply to your esteemed letter of September 30, I 
beg to inform you first of all that the mysterious pheno¬ 
mena, without the tumultuous violence they displayed in 
the beginning, still continue in the house, and that the 
papers you mention contain not a word of truth on the 
subject.” 


334 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


After regretting that the committee of enquiry had not 
heard or recorded the testimony of the many honourable 
people who had been eye and ear witnesses of these strange 
phenomena, Mr. Joiler added: 

‘ ‘ Exposed on the one hand to a coarse and fanatical 
populace, and on the other to an incredulous, slandering, 
and jeering Press, I was abandoned in my misfortune with 
a numerous family, and now my wife’s and my children’s 
shaken health force me to find another home. At first I 
wanted to keep the secret. But the noise was so great that 
I could no longer keep silence. The phenomena, of whose 
existence I was convinced in spite of myself, and in broad 
daylight, for six weeks, were of various kinds. 

“At first we heard raps on the walls and floor, and es¬ 
pecially on the doors of the house. Sometimes these phe¬ 
nomena were so violent that the doors opened and shut, 
being torn out of the latches. Then the noises diminished 
and passed into a light jolting. Tables, chairs, and crock¬ 
ery were upset, sometimes with noise, sometimes without. 
Pictures were taken from the walls, vessels taken from 
tables and cupboards, and put upside down on the floor. 
All sorts of objects were hung on nails. Finally, pictures 
were turned with their faces to the wall under our eyes, and 
stones, fruits, clothes, etc., were thrown about and hidden 
in dark places, in spite of locks and bolts. 

‘ ‘ Stones were often thrown down the chimney. Nothing 
was broken or damaged, and, strange to say, the stones 
which, coming down the chimney, hit one or other of my 
children did not cause a shock or appreciable pain. We 
have been made to feel the touch of an icy hand and the 
ends of fingers, and we have felt a cold wind like a beating 
of wings, which was felt by every inhabitant of the house. 
We also heard a perfect imitation of a watch being wound 
up, of splitting wood, of counting money, of rubbings and 
songs, and articulate sounds as from a human voice. Gen¬ 
erally these sounds, often very loud, had some relation to 
the work and conversation of the people in the house. The 
night before last, about 8 p.m., a stone wet with dew was 
thrown up the stairs nearly in front of the door of our 
dwelling. Seven weeks ago these stories would have made 


HAUNTING PHENOMENA 335 

me smile and shrug my shoulders, but now I must assert 
them with all the force at my command.” 

Professor Perty adds: 11 National Councillor Joller, who 
is known everywhere as a truthful and enlightened man, 
will find some consolation for the annoyance and disturb¬ 
ance he suffered on account of these mysterious phenomena, 
in the thought that they contribute to the enlarging of our 
spiritual horizon, and open a vista of a new order of things, 
while the false judgment passed on him by some is but the 
result of ignorance.’’ 

We might think, with Professor Perty or with 
Bozzano who comments upon him (and repeat what 
we said before), that these trivial, vulgar, material 
manifestations, similar to so many others in this 
work, are operated according to the principle of least 
resistance (like lightning flashes) and might he di¬ 
rected by invisible intelligences, with the object of 
impressing the witnesses by shaking their indiffer¬ 
ence and inviting them to meditate on the possibility 
of the existence of a soul surviving death, with all 
the moral and social consequences implied in that. 
If we admit that interpretation, we also admit that 
a very noble aim is attained with very moderate 
means, adapted to the largely vulgar nature of man; 
for we must admit that most people only know ma¬ 
terial life, remain deaf to philosophical and psycho¬ 
logical arguments, and are only struck by brutal 
facts. A hard knock in the back impresses them 
more than a discourse of Plato, of Buddha, or of 
Jesus Christ. 

We may now state that in the totality of haunting 
phenomena the Poltergeists or independent rapping 
spirits, having no connection with the dead, are much 
more numerous than the cases of association such 
as those described in the last chapter. Yet the ac¬ 
counts now on my table would represent some thirty 
pages. They are quite similar to those already 
published. 


336 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


That some invisible intelligence is at work in 
Poltergeist phenomena is incontestable. Missiles hit 
chosen targets, slow down so as not to hurt spec¬ 
tators, describe capricious trajectories, fall from no 
one knows where, pass through narrow slits and 
even penetrate into hermetically closed rooms. Such 
acts belong to a supernormal world. To attribute 
them to queer faculties of the subconscious seems to 
me an hypothesis difficult to sustain. We have 
pointed out that the triviality and vulgarity of the 
manifestations may be explained by the simple ob¬ 
ject of attracting attention and by the facility of 
taking the line of least resistance. There may also 
be vulgar spirits, as there are in our world, and prob¬ 
ably even a large number. Why should there not 
be practical jokers on the other side of the barrier 
as well as on this side—or even imbecile and wicked 
entities 1 

A laborious compilation made by Ernest Bozzano 
led him to the following conclusion: 

Among 532 cases of hauntings, 374 belong to the category 
of “haunting by the dead,” and 158 are Poltergeist cases. 
The latter are, therefore, 28 per cent of the total. Exam¬ 
ining the categories separately we find that among the 
Poltergeist cases there are 46 cases of stone-throwing, 39 
of spontaneous bell-ringing, 7 fires, and 7 auditory cases 
in which unknown human voices were heard. 

Among the phenomena of haunting proper, 374 out of 
532— i.e. y 72 per cent—show a connection with a death— 
mostly tragic—which took place in the building or the 
locality haunted. 

The 374 cases in question can be divided into several 
very distinct and suggestive groups. Thus, in a first group 
of 180 cases—mostly of great certainty—the origin of the 
haunting coincided with a tragic event which had occurred 
there. In another group of 27 cases the absence of docu¬ 
ments was compensated by the discovery of human remains 
buried or walled in in those places—a manifest indication 


HAUNTING PHENOMENA 


337 


of bloody tragedies enacted there and forgotten. In a 
third group of 51 cases, deaths are associated with the place, 
and in a fourth group of 26 cases the person deceased and 
manifesting did not die in the haunted place, but had 
lived there a long time. 

In 304 cases out of a total of 374 there is, therefore, a 
death coinciding with a haunting. There remain 70 cases 
without a death precedent, or at least without a discover¬ 
able one. This enormous majority of cases succeeding a 
death seems sufficient to justify the hypothesis of a link 
between the two orders of facts. 

The conclusion of all we have reviewed is that 
these extraordinary and inexplicable phenomena cer¬ 
tainly take place, in spite of difficulties of observa¬ 
tion and special illusions inevitably associated with 
their study. They are as certain as the existence of 
the sun and the moon. But it is easier to verify 
them than to explain them. Yet we must devote a 
last chapter to a search for an explanation, pausing, 
however, to deal with Spurious Haunted Houses. 


CHAPTER XII 
SPURIOUS HAUNTED HOUSES 


S PURIOUS haunted houses are as numerous as 
true haunted houses. The matter lends itself 
largely to fraud, trickery, practical jokes, illu¬ 
sions, hallucinations, and hysterical errors, as well 
as lies by children of both sexes. I have gone to the 
trouble of collecting hundreds of narratives, includ¬ 
ing those discussed some time ago by the Psychical 
Societies of England, the United States, France, and 
Italy, and published in various French and foreign 
journals. These various narratives present a volume 
nearly as large as this, and it seems superfluous to 
publish them separately. I have spent much time on 
this, and I shall spare the reader’s time. Those who 
wish for full information need only look up the files 
of the Paris Annales des Sciences Psychiques, the 
Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 
of London and New York, and of the Rome review 
Luce e Omhra. These are the principal periodicals 
on the subject, and they give much authentic infor¬ 
mation. 

The facts and happenings associated closely or re¬ 
motely with Spiritualism are particularly exposed to 
illusions, errors of interpretation, and particularly 
frauds of impostors. In spite of the infamy of false 
mediums who cynically speculate with the sorrow of 
bereaved human beings hungering for consolation, 
such vile impostors are numerous, and cannot be too 
carefully avoided. I myself have exposed more than 
one, so that they were driven from the countries they 
exploited so grossly and unscrupuously. Also, there 

338 


SPURIOUS HAUNTED HOUSES 339 


are persons endowed with real psychic faculties who, 
when their powers give out, do not hesitate to give a 
coup de pouce. Students of the subject whose time 
is precious have often had to complain of this sort 
of thing. 

As we have seen, among other cases, from a lettel 
of the eminent astronomer Schiaparelli, which I 
published before, savants are often discouraged in 
spite of their anxiety to gather information, to the 
great detriment of science. Men imbued with the 
scientific spirit are naturally frank and sincere, and 
do not understand mendacity. 

It is more interesting and more important to dis¬ 
cover the causes of the true phenomena observed. 

One thing we cannot refuse to admit—viz., that 
haunted houses belong to all times and all countries. 


CHAPTER Xm 
THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


Origin and mode of production of phenomena of haunting — 
The fifth element. 

“This is a book of good faith.” —Montaigne. 

“ W. yELIX qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas!” 

(Happy is he who is enabled to know the 
causes of things!) said Virgil 2,000 years 
ago in his admirable Georgies (ii, 489), referring to 
the happiness of those whose vigorous spirit pene¬ 
trates the secrets of nature and rises above com¬ 
monplace ideas. Does the material collected in the 
present work enable us to attain that happiness ? 

In this force and independent documentation, de¬ 
void of all prejudice (prce-judicium, anticipated 
judgment), my readers know that my only object has 
been to instruct myself and to give them the result 
of the investigations. May they allow me, therefore, 
to remind them that my personal study of this occult 
world commenced in November, 1861, in the company 
of Allan Kardec, the founder of modern Spiritism 
and without doubt the best informed man of the 
epoch, and that from those far-off years till now 
(1923) I have been in a position to know nearly all 
the work done on the subject in the whole world. I 
am, therefore, I confess, singularly astonished to 
find these phenomena denied by people who seem to 
be intelligent, well informed, and sensible. 

As I have already said, it is usually considered 
“good form” to profess an absolute scepticism with 

340 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


341 


regard to the facts which form the subject-matter of 
the present volume. For three-quarters of the citi¬ 
zens of our planet, all the unexplained noises in 
haunted houses, all the displacements of more or less 
heavy objects, without contact, all the movements of 
tables, furniture, and other objects met with in so- 
called spiritualistic phenomena, all the communica¬ 
tions dictated by raps or automatic writing, all ap¬ 
paritions, partial or entire, of phantom forms, are 
illusions, hallucinations, or tricks. There is no ex¬ 
planation to seek. The only reasonable opinion is 
that we have to do with errors, that all“ mediums ,’ 9 
professional or otherwise, are impostors, that these 
phenomena do not exist, and that the witnesses, are 
idiots. 

The subject is indeed complicated, and the problem 
is an equation with several unknown quantities. But 
science has solved many others like it, from equa¬ 
tions of the first degree to the transcendental func¬ 
tions of the integral calculus. In the first place, 
there are two elements present—viz., human facul¬ 
ties to be analysed and determined, and an invisible 
psychic element external to ourselves. 

We may read in the Unknoivn Forces of Nature 
(Final Edition, 1906, p. 591): 

The field of Spiritualism is open to all explanatory hy¬ 
potheses. It is found that the communications dictated by 
the tables are in rapport with the state of mind, the ideas, 
opinions, knowledge, attainments—even the literature of 
the experimenters. They reflect the assembly. 

The name “medium” is quite inappropriate, inasmuch as 
it prejudges what has to be proved. It supposes that the 
person endowed with these faculties is an intermediary be¬ 
tween spirits and experimenters. Admitting that this is 
sometimes the case, it is certainly not usually so. The ro¬ 
tation of a table, its tilting, its levitation, the displacement 
of a piece of furniture, the swelling of a curtain, the noises 


342 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


heard, are caused by a force emanating from that person 
or from the totality of those present. 

We can surely not assume that there is always a spirit 
responding to our fancies. And the hypothesis is all the 
more superfluous since these alleged spirits teach us noth¬ 
ing. Our own psychic force is surely in action most of the 
time. The person exercising the force would more appro¬ 
priately be called the dynamogen, because he or she en¬ 
genders the force. That would, in my opinion, be the term 
most appropriate to that state. And it expresses what 
every observer witnesses. 

That was an invitation to use scientific methods. 

Our studies on these subjects require, perhaps, 
greater care than all the others. Already in 1869, 
in my speech at the grave of Allan Kardec, I re¬ 
marked that Spiritualism must not be treated as a 
religion but as a science to be studied, and that the 
causes at play are more varied and numerous than 
one might suppose. 

We do not know all the human faculties. The 
precept of the Temple of Delphi (T v&Qi oectuTov, 
Know thyself) is still appropriate. Our own powers 
certainly have something to do with the phenomena 
we are studying. A faithful servant of the experi¬ 
mental method, I hold that we must examine every 
natural hypothesis before we have recourse to 
others. 

When, in L’Inconnu (1900) I essayed a first me¬ 
thodical classification of these very varied occur¬ 
rences, I started with the best-established telepathic 
transmissions and with the manifestations of the 
dying and the living, which were open to verification 
by creditable witnesses worthy of entire confidence. 

It has always seemed to me that we cannot use 
too much caution in the interpretation of the facts, 
especially when it is a question of a scientific proof 
of the survival of the soul. For our normal impres- 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


343 


sion is that the soul is intimately bound up with the 
brain, with its evolution and its end. It is a matter 
of provng the error of this appearance. Are cer¬ 
tain phenomena occurring at the moment of death to 
be placed before or after that moment? I naturally 
assumed at first that they were due to the psychic 
force of the living person, while agreeing that a 
careful analysis might yield the proof of an action 
after death. This caution has been brought against 
me as a reproach. 

M. A. Erny wrote in the Annales des sciences 
psychiques of 1900 (p. 22): 

It is a complete error of M. Flammarion to believe that 
it is only the dying who can manifest themselves and not 
the dead. 

A deceased person can manifest himself in a more or 
less objective manner, being disengaged. His psychic body 
can act instantaneously and transport itself to enormous 
distances, like the electric fluid. 

Besides, it is only to relatives or friends that a dead per¬ 
son manifests himself, as a rule, because the affection which 
united them in life attracts them once more towards those 
who loved them. 

As for the dying, they cannot possibly manifest them¬ 
selves, for the excellent reason that at the moment of death 
all the psychic elements struggle painfully to disengage 
themselves from the physical body, and in that supreme 
crisis they are unable to act in any manner whatever. 1 
The dying person is in a sort of comatose state, in which 
he seems to suffer a good deal, but is in reality insensible 
during the crisis and on account of it. I myself remember 
that when my father was dying he seemed to suffer terribly 
during his agony, and I said to him: “One would think 
that you are in great pain, but if you are not suffering, 
press my hand.” Though he could not speak, my father 
lightly pressed my hand which held his. It was a palpable 


1 This is contradicted by facts (see Autour de la Mort). 



344 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


and clear proof that he was not suffering, and that his state 
was not painful. My father firmly believed in the immor¬ 
tality of the soul, and after his death his face, contracted 
by his illness, took on a look of grandeur and elevation, 
which greatly impressed my mother and myself. 


I never said or thought that the dead could not 
manifest themselves, and I have found no hypothe¬ 
sis of theoretical analysis. On the contrary, I believe 
that such manifestation is now proved by observed 
facts and that we must admit it, on condition of not 
being misled by illusions and errors. 

M. Emy was then (1900) specially dealing with my 
work L’Inconnu, which had just appeared and which 
does indeed occupy itself principally with telepathy 
and manifestations of the dead. That was to be the 
beginning of our studies. He quoted the cases I 
published, including the case of General Parmentier 
{L’Inconnu, pp. 64-67), of Rene Kraemer (p. 70), 
of Mme. Feret (p. 74), of Clovis Hugues (p. 76), of 
Baron Deslandes (p. 81), and of Baroness Staff e 
(p. 82), and concluded that I was mistaken in attrib¬ 
uting these cases to dying persons or to hallucina¬ 
tions, whereas, according to him, they were certainly 
due to the dead. 

I desire this as much as my critic, but I am more 
exacting with regard to proofs. We cannot be too 
exacting. The scientific method is inexorable. I 
am often caught between two reefs—that of scepti¬ 
cism which denies everything, and that of credulity 
which accepts everything. 

May we not even ask ourselves whether we are not 
all mistaken, whether these phenomena are not pro¬ 
duced either by the dying or the dead, but simply 
by ourselves, by human faculties, as yet unknown? 
The question arises very naturally. The permanent 
fact that a medium is necessary for the production of 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 345 

spiritoidal phenomena is not negligible. On a for¬ 
mer occasion I called mediums dynamo gens. 

Man certainly does not know himself. 

The comparative studies of Aksakotf have shown 
that more than one phenomenon of haunting can be 
put down to an action at a distance due to the psychic 
force of the living. In many cases this is indeed 
quite probable. Kerner tells us the following story 
of the poet Lenan: 

I must mention an event which proves how little his 
ethereal body was attached to his physical body. One day, 
when he was dining with us and we were conversing over 
our dessert, he suddenly went silent and pale, and sat im¬ 
movable in his chair. But in the adjoining room, where 
nobody was, we heard glasses clinking as if somebody were 
moving them. We called him by name and asked him to 
explain. He arose as out of a magnetic sleep, and when we 
told him what had happened he said: “That has often 
happened to me. My soul is then, so to speak, outside my 
body.” 

Without occupying ourselves for the present with 
the theory of “ethereal bodies,” let us only repeat 
that the human being is endowed with some as yet 
unknown faculties. 

In his ingenious researches on the physical phe¬ 
nomena attributed by his wife Gisele (an excellent 
medium) to a dead woman (Gisele’s mother), Dr. 
W. de Germyn 2 was led to the following curious re¬ 
marks : 

The noises produced in the house continuing from time 
to time, I took occasion one night when Gisele was asleep, 
and I was awakened by sounds imitating pans and furni¬ 
ture being upset, to convert her ordinary sleep into hyp¬ 
nosis. She repeated, with many hesitations and searches, 

2 Contribution to the Study of Certain Misinterpretated Cerebral 
Faculties, p. 441. 



346 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


what she had already told me when she was impersonating 
her mother. I then ordered her to remember the next day 
on waking np all she had told me when she slept, to have 
a mass said for the repose of a soul in torment, and to pray 
that we might be delivered from her presence. 

I do not know whether Gisele had the mass said or not, 
but I know that since that time no more sounds have been 
heard. 

The sounds attributed by Gisele to the spirit of a dead 
person were evidently produced unconsciously by herself. 
There is a medium in every haunted house. Ours was de¬ 
cidedly haunted. Often the covering was pulled off my 
bed, and invisible hands touched me through the bed¬ 
clothes. On one occasion, when I was awake and sitting 
on my bed, I felt a hand which seized one of mine and 
pressed it strongly. I sometimes distinctly heard somebody 
coming up the stairs, reach the door of our room, and try 
to open it. The furniture seemed to move and be upset 
without any visible effect. These were imitative sounds, 
but of wonderful perfection. 

I believe the subconsciousness of Gisele was led by the 
desire to convert me to Spiritualism. My incredulity made 
her suffer. And she had, to attain her purpose, used this 
absurd means derived from popular beliefs. 

In spite of the title of dynamogens, which I for¬ 
merly applied to mediums, I think that term is rather 
too exclusive. The unknown faculties of the human 
being act, but they do not suffice to explain certain 
posthumous manifestations. But let us not lose 
sight of it. 

Among other examples in favour of the idea that 
the dead manifest themselves, M. Erny quotes the 
following ( Annales , 1900, p. 98): 

Alfred Ohagen has communicated to me an account of 
a case which happened to a friend of his, M. H., a material¬ 
ist convinced that death is the end of everything. His 
belief was considerably shaken by what happened at the 
death of his brother-in-law, whom he loved very much 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


347 


and who showed his materialist opinions. M. H. was sit¬ 
ting by the bed on which his brother-in-law was lying 
some hours after his death. The door was half open and 
there was only one candle, burning near the door. He 
placed his hand on the rigid forehead of the dead man 
and said: ‘ 1 Albert, can you tell me, is there survival or 
is there not?” Hardly had he pronounced these words 
when the half-open door slammed and the candle went out. 
M. H. quietly arose, and, unconvinced that it was a strange 
phenomenon, he lighted the candle afresh, thinking that 
a draught might have made the door bang and extinguish 
the candle. But in order to find where he stood, he got a 
piece of chalk and made sure that the door had no ten¬ 
dency to shut of its own accord by some inclination and 
that there was no draught in the adjoining rooms, the 
doors and windows of which were shut. M. H. placed the 
candle in front of the door several times and it did not 
flicker. Then he put the door in the same position, and 
made a mark on the floor with the chalk to fix the position 
exactly. The door did not move. Then he repeated his 
appeal: “Albert, if that is really a sign from you, shut 
the door again.” It immediately banged as at first. His 
sister, who lay on a couch in the adjoining room, asked 
him angrily why he had twice banged the door so violently. 
He asked her if the door ever shut of its own account. 
“Never,” said the sister. Next day he made some more 
experiments with the door, but found it did not close by 
itself. Also, the servant removed the marks of chalk in 
his presence, so that he was sure he had not been dreaming; 
and the fact that his sister had been troubled twice in her 
sorrow by the noise proved that there was no hallucination. 

This very characteristic case was reported in Light of 
February 27, 1894, from which I translate it. I ask M. 
Flammarion to consider it, for as the case comes from a 
materialist it is all the more striking. 

Well, this remarkable case does not strike me as 
absolutely conclusive. What is there to prove that 
the personality of the experimenter was not able to 
produce the phenomenon unconsciously? The action 


348 HAUNTED HOUSES 

of the deceased is indeed very probable, but is it 

certain ? 

I am far from being opposed to assuming the ac¬ 
tions of deceased persons. On the contrary. If I 
commenced by considering those of the dying, of the 
living, it is because it seemed best to prove first of 
all the reality of these, from which we might natur¬ 
ally pass on to a discussion of those of the dead by 
a continuation of the methodical order which should 
be observed in affirmations of such importance. Let 
us not forget that for our personal conviction we 
must neutralise by positive psychical observations 
the capital objection of the parallelism between the 
birth and development of the intelligence of the 
infant and the material evolution of its brain. 

And let us not lose sight of the physiological and 
psychological faculties of the human being, especi¬ 
ally its possible doubling. Everybody knows the 
great discovery made at Bordeaux by Dr. Azam of 
the two alternate mental states of Felida. 3 


3 It will be remembered that, born in 1843, this girl in 1858 had 
violent hysterical fits which seemed to presage lunacy, and for 
which Dr. Azam was consulted. She was observed to fall into 
cataleptic trances which lasted several minutes, after which she woke 
up in quite a different state, a different person, gay instead of sad, 
with a sprightly character; and this second state, which at first 
lasted but a few hours, ended by dividing her life into two nearly 
equal periods, the second state forming a life almost entirely dis¬ 
tinct from the first. It got so far that in the second state she fell 
in love with a neighbour, became pregnant, and gave birth to a 
child (without being aware of it when in her first state), who, 
in 1875, when Dr. Azam published his study, was sixteen years 
of age. The second state was gradually lengthened at the expense 
of the first, and finally spread over her whole existence. Naturally 
this story was received with a general smile. The girl was accused 
of acting a comedy, and the eminent observer was considered to 
have been duped. The latter, in reply to the general ignorance, 
published his observations under the title Hypnotisme, Double 
Conscience et Alterations de la Personnalit&. Felida was then forty- 
four years old, had been married for a long time to the mysterious 
father of her first-born, and was the mother of a charming family, 
the second state having finished by absolutely dominating the first. 



THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


349 


When we get to know these examples we can guess 
how vast is the unexplored territory of the human 
psychical and physiological world, and we are dis¬ 
posed to assign it an important part in the produc¬ 
tion of the phenomena we are studying. All this 
agrees with what we found in vol. i of Death and Its 
Mystery as regards the existence of unknown human 
faculties. We are only in the forecourt of knowl¬ 
edge. We know nothing. Let us say with Millet, 
in his beautiful hook En lisant Fabre: “I know 
nothing, but I hope to know. ’ ’ 

At the International Congress of Psychical Re¬ 
search held in Copenhagen from August 28 to Sep¬ 
tember 2,1921, of which we have an excellent Official 
Report, edited by M. Carl Yett, Dr. von Schrenck- 
Notzing, expounded under the title Der SpuJc in 
Hopfgarten, a judicial verification of the phenome¬ 
non of telekinesis of which my learned colleague, M. 
Louis Maillard, has given, in the review Psychica, a 
scientific summary which shows how uncertain the 
explanation of haunting phenomena still is. 

This case of haunting presents a double outlook, 
inasmuch as it brings up certain hypotheses concern¬ 
ing its cause, and also because it was the subject of 
a judicial enquiry which established its authenticity 
in an indisputable manner. 

In Hopfgarten, a village near Weimar, there lives a 
clockmaker of the name of Sauerbrey, married a second 
time and having a son by his first marriage. The latter, 
who lives in a neighbouring locality and occupies himself 
with occult sciences, visited his father about February 10, 
1921, and found his stepmother in bed with a chronic mal¬ 
ady from which she had suffered for a long time. The sub¬ 
sequent enquiry failed to ascertain whether he tried to 


Other cases of the same order are to be found in the excellent 
work of Jules Liegeois, of Nancy, De la Suggestion et du Somnam - 
lulisme (1889). 



350 HAUNTED HOUSES 

treat her by hypnotism or whether he restricted himself, 
as witnesses report, with examining her pulse and placing 
his hand on her forehead. But after his departure the 
patient complained of pains in her head. 

On February 17 her condition grew worse. She had 
hallucinations, and seemed to see the eyes of her stepson 
constantly fixed upon her. About 11 p.m. raps were heard 
in her bedroom, on the walls, the table, the door, the ceiling, 
etc. They lasted until morning, and then ceased the next 
day and following nights. 

They recommenced some days afterwards. Various ob¬ 
jects moved without contact, such as chairs and the table. 
A cup was thrown on the floor and broken. These phe¬ 
nomena took place by the light of an electric lamp, but 
grew stronger in the dark. 

The inhabitants of the house, disturbed in their sleep, 
sent for the Weimar police, and on February 24 the Com¬ 
missar with eight men arrived on the spot and posted them 
through the house in order to discover the supposed trick¬ 
ster. But the same phenomena took place in presence of 
police and the commissary could but put it into his report. 
One of the men placed various objects about two yards 
from the patient and saw them move without anyone touch¬ 
ing them. The other men, as well as a nurse and a neigh¬ 
bour, also witnessed the movements. The dog of the house, 
ordinarily very lively, showed himself much depressed 
while the phenomena lasted. A clock stopped, 4 though 
Sauerbrey found it had not deteriorated. 

Finally, on February 28, a mental physician arrived 
from Weimar. He treated the patient by suggestion and 
persuaded her that she had a stronger will than that which 
had influenced her. His efforts were successful, and the 
patient exclaimed that she was delivered. From that mo¬ 
ment all the phenomena above described ceased. 

Thereupon the younger Sauerbrey was prosecuted for 
carelessly causing harm by the hypnotic manifestations he 
was suspected of having used. He was brought before the 
Sheriff’s Court at Vieselbach and appeared on April 19, 
1921. The case against him being insufficiently established, 


Compare the stopping of clocks mentioned above (p. 154). 



THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


351 


he was acquitted. But the official report of the trial, giving 
the evidence of the various witnesses and that of the police 
commissary, as well as a statement by the president of the 
court, establish conclusively the reality of the facts and the 
impossibility of the patient having carried them, as her 
extreme weakness made it impossible for her to leave her 
bed. 

The hypnoid state of the patient seems to be a necessary 
condition of the phenomena observed, because it accom¬ 
panies them, and they cease as soon as that state does. And 
the author of the pamphlet here summarised concludes that 
the animistic hypothesis fully accounts for the manifesta¬ 
tions, which, by the way, did not any time acquire a re¬ 
ligious or spiritoid character. 

But he hastens to add that this explanation is far from 
being applicable to all manifestations of this kind. There 
are several which are produced in the absence of any per¬ 
son who can be considered an agent, and which seem to be 
more dependent upon a locality than upon a person, etc. 

If, then, in the present example we can, so to speak, seize 
the mode of production of the phenomena on the wing, we 
must not generalise hastily. It is wiser to recognise that the 
etiology of the phenomena of haunting is still surrounded 
by deep mystery. 

This reasoning of M. Maillard is exact and judi¬ 
cious, and agrees with numerous cases brought for¬ 
ward in this book. The living human being enters 
largely into the production of these phenomena. But 
they are not yet explained. 

We do not know how they are produced. There 
are, no doubt, fantastic stone-throwings and veri¬ 
table destructions of buildings, committed uncon¬ 
sciously by women and hysterical girls, by the 
externalisation of their nerve force. I shall mention 
another case, still more amazing, published by the 
Annales de sciences psychiques (1899, pp. 302-309), 
a case which is almost incredible and yet sufficiently 
verified. 


352 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Under the title “A Haunted Young Lady at Ooty, ,, the 
Madras Times of May 7, 1897, tells how a certain Miss 
Floralina had gone with one of her friends to visit a Cath¬ 
olic cemetery. Three days before, a man had committed 
suicide and was buried there. 

Of a light and thoughtless disposition, these young per¬ 
sons had chosen the cemetery that evening as a place of 
recreation. Carried off by their own merriment they 
jumped and danced on the grave, and even dug into the 
earth and demolished the cross which had been placed 
there. On arriving home they fell ill, and it is said they 
are truly possessed by the Devil. 

But let us listen to the story of those mad victims 
of hysteria, who recall the convulsionists of Saint- 
Medand, the possessed ones of Loudun, and other 
psycho-physiological cases. 

They were agitated, looked at everybody with wild eyes, 
and became so strange that it was thought better to keep 
them confined to the house. They tore their clothes, and if 
women came near them and endeavoured to make them 
quiet they simply sent them rolling on the ground. On the 
other hand, they would give way to men, whether because 
they were stronger or for another reason. The days passed, 
and these singular girls, perpetually tormented, let their 
hair hang uncombed and in disorder, and sometimes broke 
into fury. 

One of them, Miss Grace, got married (which was the 
best she could do) and left the house. 

On Sunday evening, the 25th April last, I had the priv¬ 
ilege of being introduced to Miss Floralina. She seemed 
calm and quiet. But I was told the following: 

Since April 20, between 10 p.m. and midnight, stones 
were thrown with force from outside, and glasses were 
broken, though the stones hurt nobody. 

On the evening of the 27th I went home at 7 p.m. and 
heard a large window-pane fall heavily to the ground. 
Advancing a few paces, I heard sounds as if stones were be¬ 
ing thrown on the four sides of the house. A little while 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


353 


after that I heard several glasses fall and break on the floor. 
The inhabitants of the house called for help. I hurried 
home to find a friend and a policeman (the station was 
close by). We went to Miss Floralina’s house together 
and, to our great astonishment, saw glasses broken into a 
thousand pieces and almost reduced to powder by large 
stones which seemed thrown with great force. What as¬ 
tonished us most was the breaking of the glasses, which 
could not have been accomplished by stones thrown from 
outside. While stones were being thrown, Miss Floralina 
told us that a large stone had fallen from the ceiling, graz¬ 
ing her head, which she was just combing in her dressing- 
room at about 2 p.m. She also told us that the throwing 
of stones and breaking of glasses had commenced at 
noon. 

Feeling certain that practical jokers were at work in all 
this, we fetched some more police and posted ourselves 
round the house in the thickets and ditches. We kept 
guard in vain till 11 p.m., for during the whole time while 
we were watching outside, stones continued to fall inside. 

On Wednesday, April 28, a number of constables, led 
by two head constables and myself, came back about 7 
p.m. We then saw stones thrown at glasses, and glasses 
falling on their own account. This excited our curiosity 
still more. Miss Floralina complained of being tired, and 
wanted to retire to her room. While she was going a piece 
of granite of medium thickness fell and broke a glass quite 
close to her with great force. 

Soon afterwards her brother came to tell us that she had 
fainted on her bed. Entering her room, we found her not 
breathing, speechless, and stiff. With much trouble she 
was brought to. Some minutes later she fell into a worse 
trance. But eventually she recovered her senses. 

On Thursday, 29th, about noon, we heard more glasses 
break. In the course of the evening we returned to the 
house and found a large assembly of head constables, all 
willing to obey orders given to them. We asked the young 
lady how she felt, and she said: ‘ ‘ The shades of the eve¬ 
ning are falling; a sensation of cold pervades my whole 
body, and my hair stands on end. I am very tired.’’ From 


354 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


5 p.m. till 7:30 p.m. a rain of stone fell, which reduced 
all the panes of the casement windows to atoms. 

She sat down on a chair in a corner of the room, and 
after she had resumed her ordinary gaiety she fell quietly 
into a trance, and then became so wild and strong that 
five men could not keep her quiet. It is worth mention¬ 
ing that while she was unconscious no glass was broken. 
Some minutes afterwards she rose from the chair with 
such force that some of us who held her were thrown over 
sideways. She remained standing, and nearly upset all 
those who held her. Using all our force, and with great 
efforts, we got her to sit down again. She sat down, her 
whole body as stiff as a piece of wood, and some seconds 
passed. She got up again, and gave us a lot of trouble. 
She wanted to go out. She was forcibly taken to her room 
and put to bed. She kicked everybody all round, and used 
her hands with such violence that several of us were afraid 
to go near her. A few minutes after she had been taken to 
her bed a large mirror on the door of the room—the central 
room of the house—fell to the ground and was smashed to 
atoms. The police then sent for a Malayali to expel the 
demons. 

While we were waiting for this man, still holding Miss 
Floralina to prevent her from rising, her prayer-book, 
which was in a chest of drawers in the adjoining room, 
came flying through the window, which had been broken 
several minutes before, and fell near her right hand. We 
were quite surprised at this incident. She remained quiet 
for some minutes, but then wanted absolutely to go out. 
I asked her why. “To see two women.” I asked her who 
were the two women. She gave the astonishing reply: 
“Two women without heads.” She became very agitated 
and determined to get out. We had to use force to keep 
her quiet. She also said: “I must go to the cemetery.” 
My friend asked her what was her object. She replied: “I 
must go to the cemetery to see Miss Grace. ’ ’ Miss Grace is 
the young married woman who was with her in the ceme¬ 
tery. 

The Malayali, the exerciser we were waiting for, entered 
the room, and as he approached the bed, the girl, who had 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


355 


had her eyes closed all the time, opened them and looked 
at him in a terrible manner. She made an effort to rush at 
him. The Malayali spoke to her in a violent tone, and she 
kept her eyes fixed on him. The Malayali (named Kunjini 
Gandhu) then wrote something on a long tape of paper, 
then mixed some ‘ ‘ ghee,’ ’ pepper, etc., and made a sort of 
cigarette of it. He first rolled up the tape and placed it in 
Miss Floralina’s hair. She put out her hand to tear it away 
but with a quick movement the man bound it up with her 
hair. Then the girl spit at him, but the Malayali pointed 
at her with a cane of Malacca (which he alleges to have 
a certain power), went boldly in front of her and dared 
her, in Malayalee, to spit upon him. She no longer ven¬ 
tured to do so. He then lighted the end of the small roll 
in the shape of a cigarette, and got one of us to hold it so 
that she could breathe the smoke through her nose. After 
some time she felt quite well. It was 11 p.m., and she 
spoke to us as usual till a quarter to twelve. Then a glass 
broke with a great noise. She fainted. The Malayali had 
left the house at 11 p.m. We used the same small roll, 
blowing the smoke into her nose, and she seemed quite to 
recover, and drank a cup of tea. 

On Friday, April 30, stones commenced to be thrown 
at noon and continued until 11 p.m. She fainted once, 
but not so deeply, though she looked terrible. On Saturday, 
the 1st inst., she told us that she went to fetch a plate 
from the dining-room, and that it had been pulled away 
from her. That evening she was in a much better frame of 
mind. But glasses were broken. She went for a walk the 
same evening, and as she re-entered the house an isolated 
window-pane which was still in one of the casements broke 
near her head and fell to the ground. Talking to one of us 
about her misfortune, she said every night she could see 
two women without heads. Some time afterwards a large 
cobble-stone flew into the room, and a glass broke of its 
own accord. 

The father was telegraphed for, and he arrived at Good- 
alur (132 miles from Ooty) the Monday evening after. On 
that day the damage in broken windows was formidable, 
but fortunately the girl did not lose consciousness. 


356 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Yesterday (Tuesday) she and her father packed their 
luggage to leave Ooty and go to Goodular. As Miss Flora- 
lina passed from room to room, packing up her belongings, 
glasses were thrown near her, but no stones were thrown 
or windows broken. They left Ooty last night. M. F. and 
his children departed in another direction. 

In my long account of this possessed girl I have not ex¬ 
aggerated the facts, and I have told them just as they 
happened. The house has a desolate appearance and is 
completely ruined. When night falls people are afraid to 
pass near it. 

This article in the Madras Times (which I have 
abridged as much as possible) was accompanied by 
the annexed letters dealing with this case of lunacy: 

I. 

OOTACAMUND, 

July 1, 1897. 

I send you herewith the authentic testimony of two gen¬ 
tlemen who are my personal friends, and who sent me their 
letters to be transmitted to you with authority to publish 
them. One of them is a Captain in the Navy (retired), and 
the other a licentiate in medicine and surgery, who was 
one of the physicians consulted. I can vouch for their 
veracity. Hoping that this will be of use to you, I remain, 
yours, etc. 


OOTACAMUND, 

Madras Presidency, 

May 28, 1897. 

I can testify to the accuracy of the report made in the 
Madras Times by its Ooty correspondent under the head¬ 
ing “Ghost at Ooty.” The correspondent is known to me 
and has reported real occurrences. I was an eyewitness of 
the phenomena, and though I looked for the cause with 
much care I could find none. I may mention that several 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 357 

people who joined my search when I visited the “possessed’’ 
house are quite in agreement with me. 

(Sg.) Jas. T. Kelly, Z.M.S. 
{Superintendent of St. Bartholomew Hospital ). 


III. 


Hope Villa, 
OoTACAMUND, 

May 9, 1897. 


Dear Mr. Burby, 

I must tell you at once that I do not believe a word of 
Spiritualism, but I was at Ethel Cottage the night before 
the departure of your namesake for Sudabar. Windows 
were broken on every hand, without a human agent. I 
stayed there for more than an hour, but discovered nothing. 
Some of the persons present attributed these strange doings 
to a supernatural intervention, but I require proofs before 
accepting such an explanation. 

Yours sincerely, 

(Sg.) W. M. Burthell. 


These observations, taken with those we have read 
on the preceding pages, show a certain association of 
the human organism with the production of phe¬ 
nomena, even with those which appear most inde¬ 
pendent of it, such as stones thrown, glasses broken, 
objects displaced, phenomena which cannot be de¬ 
nied, as they are incontestably real. This dyna- 
mogenic girl was their unconscious cause and their 
victim. 

It is sad to think that hundreds of women “ pos¬ 
sessed’ * were burnt alive by the Inquisition for the 
crime of witchcraft. Let us also remember that one 
of the purest women of history, Joan of Arc, was 
also burnt as a witch. Humanity is a little more 
enlightened now. But how much of the road is still 
to travel! 

Here follows a psycho-physiological manifestation 
which closely resembles the last. I shall pick it out 


358 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


from among the large number of those I have here. 
It is extracted from the Gazette de Lausanne of May 
1, 1914, under the signature of a correspondent of 
the paper: 

About a league from Sion, on the hills on the right bank 
of the Rhone overlooking the Saint Leonard road, there is a 
pretty little village of Molignon, which has given its name 
to a famous wine. 

The hamlet consists of a chapel dedicated to Saint Anne, 
the centre of a favourite pilgrimage, and half a dozen 
houses and granges. Five minutes farther in the direction 
of Grimisuat, there is, facing a steep and rocky road, a 
pretty chalet of brown wood, bearing the date 1874 on its 
gable. 

In this isolated village lives a young family consisting 
of father, mother, and a boy of eleven years. 

On April 18 last, the young lad was suddenly seized by 
nervous attacks accompanied by strange phenomena. 

Under an unknown influence the boy was convulsed, hit 
out with legs and arms, rolled his eyes, jumped, shouted 
and fell down flat. At the same time, sand and stones 
were thrown in the room. Cheese, knives, and other objects 
which were on the table rolled on the ground. A holy-water 
stoup was broken with a stone at the moment when a Ca¬ 
puchin friar was pouring holy water into it. A glass of 
wine was broken in the hands of a relative who had come to 
see the poor boy. When he was in bed, he felt himself 
violently pulled, and was hit in the face with stones, etc. 

The lad was taken to Saint Anne ’s chapel, but this made 
it worse, and the attacks became so violent that two men had 
difficulty in holding the child, and at one moment he was 
thrown violently on the ground and drawn along the 
floor. 

A blessed medal had been attached to the boy’s neck, but 
the fastening soon undid itself and the medal was thrown 
into the air by invisible hands. 

A Capuchin of Sion, the parish priests of Savieze and 
Grimisuat, and a canon of Saint Bernard came to the 
haunted chalet, but did not succeed in bettering the state 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 359 

of the patient, whom, the parents declared to be smitten 
with a curse. The famous “mege” of Heremence, of whom 
M. Victor Tissot tells us at length in his Suisse Inconnue, 
was called and soon arrived. Installed in the room of the 
chalet, and surrounded by the family and some relatives 
and friends, he read from a grimoire the prayers and 
invocations suitable to the occasion. While he was reading 
the stones did not spare him, and several fell on his head 
and on his book. 

These events took place last Sunday. Now, since Monday 
evening, the attacks and the phenomena which accompanied 
them have completely disappeared. 

In listening to these stories one seems xo be dreaming. 
However, nothing of all that I write has been invented. 
During the ten days that these phenomena were produced, 
hundreds of people from Molignon and the surrounding 
villages, Sion and even Conthey, saw them, were present 
at the seizures and were profoundly moved. 

I went yesterday to Molignon, passed the chalet and 
chatted with the little boy, pretty enough with his soft 
shy eyes and bloom of health; also with his father, an 
honest peasant with a sad face; and with his mother, 
whose eye is still sore from the handful of sand which 
was thrown in her face in the closed kitchen. All told 
me in the most natural manner the facts I have related, 
saying they were sure a sort had been cast on their child. 

Until April 18 nothing unusual had occurred at the 
chalet, which has been in existence for forty years. On 
the question of mauvais sort the parents seem to have some 
preconceptions, but they say nothing positively. They live 
on good terms with the people of Molignon, and do not 
know whom to accuse of their misfortune. As regards the 
child, he has a good constitution, nothing in his attitude 
suggests any weakness, and before the attacks of April 18 
he had experienced nothing like it. 

Here we see once more that these strange phe¬ 
nomena are associated with the organism of an 
adolescent child. 

A learned and distinguished man, Mr. Hjalmar 


360 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


Wijk, of Gothenburg (Sweden), published in 1904 
a remarkable work on these phenomena. It is “an 
experimental study of inexplicable noises and move¬ 
ments.” It can be read in the Annales des sciences 
psycliiques, of September, 1905, and it is interesting 
to summarise it here. The conclusion indicated by 
this case is that the raps were due to the unconscious 
action of a person whose presence was necessary 
to their production. 

In the spring of 1904 the inhabitants of a villa situated 
in the south of Sweden noticed some noises which seemed 
to be produced by vigorous blows inside the flooring and 
the walls, and impossible to account for by any known 
cause. 

The occupants were the forest inspector, N., and his 
wife, their servant, and a German official. Before long it 
was observed that the phenomena were connected with the 
person of Mme. N. by some indefinable link, for the blows 
were only produced when she was in the house; and always 
in her immediate neighbourhood, but were in no way in¬ 
fluenced by the presence of the other inhabitants. 

Here is, first of all, a sketch of Mme. N. who, for the 
sake of brevity, is called by her Christian name, Karin. 

Karin is twenty-seven years of age. She is of a delicate 
constitution, and there is something childlike in her face 
and her whole being. She has lost a little of her gaiety 
and light-heartedness in consequence of disappointments 
and sorrow, without, however, suffering any alteration in 
her original disposition. Hers is a frank and trusting 
nature which quickly expresses its inmost feelings. 

Her whole person seems healthy, and one has the im¬ 
pression that the nervous attacks to which she has been 
subject during the last few years are not the consequence 
of her original pathological condition. There seems to be 
no family defect. Karin has been married since 1897, and 
has no children. 

Her first observations go back ten years. She had then, 
on several occasions, auditory sensations in the shape of 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


361 


sighs, footsteps, etc. More important than these few iso¬ 
lated cases appears to be her talent for clairvoyance, which 
was discovered three years after the appearance of the 
attacks of hysteria, and the manifestations of which show 
certain similarities with those attacks. 

The information obtained from the clairvoyant is not 
of any great interest. At first she believed she saw people 
whom she knew, deceased friends and relatives of Karin’ 
and her husband, sometimes two or three at the same 
seance. One day in the spring of 1903 the glass which 
Karin held in her hand began to dance gaily on the table 
and a personage of the name of Piscator came on the scene. 
This Piscator gave only a little vague information about 
his life. A familiar, impertinent, coarse, and jovial indi¬ 
vidual, he overwhelms Karin with declarations of love, 
and is totally different from the other personalities; vio¬ 
lent and irritable in the extreme, he ended by becoming 
for Karin her bete noire. As she believes that her clair¬ 
voyance only reveals her own subconscious, imaginative 
life, it seems to her as if the personality of Piscator hangs 
over her like a cloud, and, representing as he does in 
some way the lower part of herself, he has become odious 
to her. 

Piscator gives quite the impression of being a product 
of the imagination, and it is perhaps in this capacity that 
he supplants more and more his predecessors with the 
clairvoyant. 5 

On April 18, Karin and her husband moved into a villa, 
which they rented for the first time, near a factory. It is 
built of wood in a clearing between the edge of the forest 
and the road, and comprises a ground floor and several 
large attics. A cellar runs under a part of the house and 
a garden surrounds it. 

The house has a deserted look. For a long time it had a 
bad reputation. When it was uninhabited and shut up, 
lights were seen shining in the windows and disturbing 

b This case is analogous to that of the American medium, Mrs. 
Piper, with the secondary personalities of Phinuit, Pelham, Im- 
perator, etc. See the work of M. Sage, Madame Piper et la SocietS 
Anglo-Americaine des Recherches Psychiques, with a preface by 
Camille Flammarion, Paris, 1902. 



362 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


noises were heard through the walls. Tradition estab¬ 
lished a connection between these tales and certain crimes, 
real or imaginary, which must have been committed there. 
Of all that, however, Karin and her husband heard nothing 
until the phenomena which occupy us had given a fresh 
impetus to the gossip. 

On May 9 the manager of the factory received a visit 
from some people whom he detained until the next day. 
In the evening these strangers were assembled in a work¬ 
room of the villa, which was opposite Karin’s room and 
communicated with the lobby. 

Mr. N. was away on business. Karin, who had gone to 
bed early, was kept awake for a long time by the noisy 
conversation of the guests. At last, towards midnight, she 
heard the party break up. Two of them, who were to sleep 
at the manager’s house, left in search of their lodgings. 
The third, who was put up at the villa, locked the door and 
retired to his room. Silence reigned, and Karin was on 
the point of going to sleep when she heard heavy footsteps 
mounting the steps of the veranda. Immediately after¬ 
wards three loud knocks resounded. When she had re¬ 
covered from the first shock, she dressed and went to open 
the door. Before her stood one of the two men who had 
just left. They had not been able to find their way in the 
dark and wanted a lantern. Karin gave him a lantern 
and went back to bed. She was falling asleep when three 
more knocks, just like those which had recently frightened 
her, made her start. She got up, went to the door and 
found nobody there. Back in bed, she heard the same three 
knocks resound repeatedly for about an hour, then all was 
quiet until three o ’clock in the morning; the three knocks 
then came once more, the last for that night. 

Karin had no thought but that these knocks were a 
practical joke on the part of the guests of the evening 
before, or of some other person, so she did not worry about 
them much. 

But the following night hardly had she got into bed and 
put out the light, when the three knocks began again and 
were repeated, with intervals of silence, for about two 
hours. They were also heard distinctly by the maid who, 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


363 


that night, was sleeping in the dining-room next door. The 
maid was extremely frightened by this inexplicable uproar. 

The next day Mr. N. came back to the villa. The row 
having begun again at night, he resolved to throw some 
light on the subject and catch the disturber of the night. 
A watch was established inside and outside, and the house 
was inspected from cellar to attic, but without result. 
Nothing was discovered and yet the blows did not cease. 
Mr. N. and his wife changed their room, they even installed 
themselves in the attic; the noise followed them every¬ 
where, and it was not long before they perceived that it 
was connected with the presence of the lady. 

Except for one day when the latter absented herself in 
order to visit the town, the phenomena were reproduced 
every night until May 30. Worn out, Karin then went 
away for a week’s rest. Silence returned to the villa, and 
it was not troubled at the place where she stayed, but, 
from the second night after her return, the knocks started 
again. From that date, however, they were less regular 
and not a daily occurrence. 

The day when Karin and her husband reoccupied the 
villa the knocks began again, but considerably feebler than 
before, and often at intervals of several days. In the 
middle of October the phenomenon ceased completely. It 
happened only once more, the day before our arrival. 
That day Karin received a telegram which caused her a 
moment of keen anxiety; immediately several knocks re¬ 
sounded in the floor at her feet. A little later some fairly 
loud knocks were heard. 

During her residence at the villa Karin frequently had 
an indefinable feeling that some evil being was present 
in the room. This sensation was particularly strong im¬ 
mediately before or during the manifestations, and when 
these took place in complete darkness, Karin often thought 
she heard a sort of muffled footsteps and sometimes a slight 
noise resembling that made by shoes gliding softly over 
the floor. These various sounds were frequently heard by 
Mr. N. when he was near his wife. 

Besides the auditory sensations relating to the knocks, 
Karin had, in the course of the summer, several other 


364 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


strange sensations. During the first period of the knocks 
she often had a presentiment of the return of her husband, 
whom she heard come in, take off his coat in the other 
room, etc., a quarter of an hour before his actual return 
from the town. Twice, when sitting in the dark, Karin 
saw in her room a strange light. On one of these occasions 
the light, which was quite distinctly the shape of a small 
flame, appeared near the shoulder of Mr. N., then it slowly 
withdrew and disappeared. Mr. N. saw the phenomenon 
as distinctly as his wife. Many times Karin, and some¬ 
times other people, thought they heard certain objects 
in the room being moved, a chair for example. These 
occurrences also happened unexpectedly nearly always in 
pitch darkness, and it was always impossible to make 
sure if anything had really been moved. One afternoon 
that Karin was writing, alone in the dining-room, she heard 
a noise in the kitchen. It seemed as if someone were moving 
the chairs and cleaning the floor. Knowing that the maid 
was outside, she went, much astonished, to the door of the 
kitchen, through which she heard the sounds just as dis¬ 
tinctly as before. She dared not open the door, but went 
to find the maid, who was working in the wash-house. 
When they both together entered the kitchen the noise 
of cleaning had ceased, but they both experienced a strange 
sensation as if someone were moving the chairs and knock¬ 
ing very gently. The floor of the kitchen had been scrubbed 
that morning in the presence of Karin. 

Karin’s perfect good faith showed itself in her efforts 
to find out the cause of the mysterious knocks. Her nat¬ 
ural good sense made her reject, from the first, the thought 
that they could be the work of some “spirit.” She thought 
that she was herself, by some incomprehensible process, 
the cause of the phenomenon. For his part, Mr. N. was 
just as interested in the solution of the puzzle. Stories 
of the phenomenon had revived the old gossip about the 
haunted villa, and the landlord began to give his tenants 
to understand that he believed them guilty of organising 
a hoax with a view to strengthening the bad reputation 
of his house. To sum up, Karin and her husband were 
equally interested in throwing light on these various in- 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


365 


cidents, and, in the course of the summer, several of their 
friends who came to see them had entire liberty to make 
every possible investigation. 

Naturally these investigations consisted chiefly in making 
sure that there was no question of a hoax. Karin, for 
example, had to place herself on a cushion apart; if she 
was lying down her legs and arms were held. The 
phenomenon diminished then in intensity, but con¬ 
tinued. 

It was only in the month of September, through an 
article in a newspaper, that we heard, Dr. Bjerre and 
myself, of the existence of the phenomenon. When we made 
known to Mr. and Mrs. N. our desire to study it on the 
spot, they immediately invited us to their house. 

The case appeared to us singularly interesting. We had 
to do with a person who seemed to present in a slight 
degree several of the psychical peculiarities of mediums, 
and one of these peculiarities appeared in an exceptionally 
pure and well-marked form. The numerous analogies be¬ 
tween the state of trance and the phenomena of mediumship 
on the one hand, profound hypnosis and hypnotic sugges¬ 
tion on the other hand, had already led us, in previous 
researches, to believe that hypnotism furnished the best 
means of studying phenomena of this kind, by enabling 
us to deal with them with the instrument par excellence 
of the exact sciences—namely, experiment. The phenomena 
of mediumship are most often, like the unusual knocks in 
the present case, manifestations of an intelligence which 
has its roots—one can admit this in a general way—in the 
subconscious life of the medium. Could we not, thanks to 
hypnosis, reach this subconscious life, model it to our 
liking by the aid of suggestion, and even by that means 
submit to our will the physical phenomena which are its 
manifestation, provoke the phenomena, stop them, modify 
them. 

Such is the narrative of Mr. Hjalmar Wijk. The 
reader will have noticed more than one analogy 
between this report and certain cases published in 
the present work. The experiences we have just 


366 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


mentioned take up a large number of pages and can 
be summarised as follows: 

1. There seems to be in this case a causal connection 
between a known nervous disease (hysteria) and the ob¬ 
scure phenomenon of raps. This last has been intimately 
mixed up with psychic phenomena emanating perhaps 
from the same nervous disease, such as hallucinations and 
the imaginative subconscious associations developed by 
clairvoyant “psychography.” Also, a certain part has 
been played by ulterior psychic influences, stories of ghosts, 
atmosphere of haunting, etc. 

2. The raps can be brought under the influence of the 
will by hypnotic suggestion. 

If the results of our researches are exact, they imply 
important consequences, on account of the practical im¬ 
portance of raps in Spiritualism and their probable re¬ 
lationship with other mediumistic facts. These results 
would furnish a solid basis for judging the psychic value 
of spiritualistic “typology” and their dependence on the 
medium and the circle, and would confirm the conclusions 
already arrived at in this respect by methods of less cer¬ 
tainty. Besides, we may hope to be able to provoke and 
study other and more complex phenomena of mediumship 
in the same manner, such as levitation and such things. 

The present work aims less at giving an account of a 
particular case than at disclosing the possibility of intro¬ 
ducing an experimental method into this new field of study. 
The importance of such a method cannot be exaggerated, 
for it is only by basing our speculations upon an experi¬ 
mental method that we can hope to explain these obscure 
phenomena which still deserve to be called “occult.” 

We can only applaud the efforts of the Swedish 
savant. Everybody can see that the credulous be¬ 
lievers in Spiritualism do more harm to it than the 
sceptics, the uncontrolled assertions of the former 
being often of an unpardonable simplicity. But it is 
clear that this experience of Mme. Karin would only 
explain a very small proportion of the phenomena 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


367 


expounded in this special book on haunted houses, 
and would notably not explain apparitions and the 
like. 

We might admit that by means of faculties at 
present unknown to science the spirit of a person 
asleep might have received in a dream the telepathic 
communication of a distant death (pp. 3, 4, 5); 
or seen beforehand an incident which happened the 
next day or long afterwards (pp. 7, 10, 12); or 
seen at a distance a brother killed by a train. 
But how can we ascribe to ourselves external events 
foreign to us, such as the apparition of a person 
who has just died in a distant country and whose 
death we do not know of (p. 3); or hear a deceased 
person whom we think alive, calling us piteously 
(p. 6); or see an alleged suicide protest against the 
accusation (p. 24); or a brother sit down beside us 
just when he has been killed in the chase (p. 28) ? 
And that ecclesiastic announcing his death to the 
almoner by fictitious noises (p. 30) ? And that cousin 
announcing his death for a legal declaration (p. 
32) ? And Cicero’s traveller calling out to his friend 
that he has been killed (p. 46) ? And Lord Brough¬ 
am’s vision of his schoolfellow dead in India (p. 

49) ? And M. Belbeder seeing the apparition of his 
friend’s mother commending the latter to him (p. 

50) ? And the precentor Russell (p. 52) ? And 
Charles who just committed suicide (p. 54) ? And 
Mr. Tweedale’s grandmother (p. 55)? And Mrs. 
Ram (p. 60)? And the peasant girl appearing sud¬ 
denly after death (p. 61) ? All these cases, accurately 
observed, are outside the personality of the observ¬ 
ers. And the Athens ghost (p. 145) ? And the fall 
of portraits and stopping of clocks (pp. 148-157)? 
And the parsonage with the mysterious noises (pp. 
161-173)? And the Coimbra villa (pp. 185-196)? 
And the case of the Brest professor (p. 214) ? Why 


368 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


should we not seek the cause in the person who had 
just died? And the door burst open at Strassburg 
(p. 233), etc.? It is truly impossible to ascribe 
these cases to any faculties of the observers, who 
were wide awake, not “duplex,’* and endowed with 
good eyesight and cool heads. These cases are real 
and external to the observers, and they reveal the 
existence of an invisible psychic world. 

My illustrious colleague and noble friend of the 
English S. P. R., Sir William Barrett, agrees with 
Aksakoff and myself that, as in mediumistic cases, 
animism and spiritism are associated in the physical 
phenomena which we are now studying. He con¬ 
cludes a competent study of Poltergeists with the 
following reflections: 6 

Here we encounter the problem why a human centre of 
radiation is necessary in Poltergeist phenomena. In chem¬ 
istry we find that in a saturated saline solution there is a 
condition of unstable equilibrium such that, if a particle 
of solid matter falls into the liquid at rest it produces a 
sudden molecular disturbance which is transmitted to the 
whole solution and produces an aggregate of solid crystals. 
The disturbance bc?omes general, until the entire solution 
has coagulated into a solid mass of crystals. All this results 
from a nucleus having come into contact with an aggrega¬ 
tion of things which had been perfectly at rest. These 
phenomena are familiar to microscopists, and it is par¬ 
ticularly in the development of cells that a “nucleus” 
shows itself to be essential. 

Thus we might consider the youth or any other subject 
in the Poltergeist phenomena to be the “nucleus” repre¬ 
senting the determining factor in these phenomena. We 
ourselves and our world, are we anything, perhaps, but 
“nucleated cells” belonging to a much vaster living or¬ 
ganism of which we cannot form an idea ? It is undubitable 
that some inscrutable intelligence shows itself at work, 
in the arrangements of cells as well as the procession of 


6 See Proceedings of the S. P. R. } vol. xxv, p. 411. 



THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


369 


worlds and suns. And since we cannot suppose that the 
evolution of animate and inanimate nature is confined to 
the visible world, we must admit the possible existence of 
different types of living beings of extremely diverse intelli¬ 
gence, both in the visible and the invisible world. In this 
case the origin of Poltergeist phenomena might be at¬ 
tributed to the work of certain invisible intelligences, 
possibly perverse, possibly rudimentary. Why should we 
persist in believing that both pleasant and perverted beings 
cannot exist in the spiritual world? Indeed, they should 
be found there in greater numbers than here. In any 
case, we cannot explain how the combination of a given 
locality with a particular human organism enables them 
to play abominable tricks in the world of the living, just 
as a savage cannot explain how the combination of a dry 
day with a special material enables a machine to produce 
electricity. 

Positive, direct, scientific observation of the phe¬ 
nomena and their normal interpretation have led us 
to believe that there are invisible beings which act 
in our atmosphere. That declaration seems bold and 
risky, and we could not be led to adopt it if it were 
compelling. Yet we cannot account for the authentic 
facts in this book, unless we assume that there are 
not only forces but beings which are independent of 
ourselves. 

This experimental conclusion agrees with the 
philosophical theory of palingenesis and confirms 
it. There is no reason why general psychic evolu¬ 
tion should stop at man. Without being confined to 
a single system, all thinkers know Charles Bonnet’s 
Palingenesie Philos ophique, published in Geneva in 
1770, and his Contemplation de la Nature , published 
in Amsterdam in 1764. And who does not know the 
Philosophie de VUnivers of Dupont of Nemours 
(1796)? 

Ballanche, Saint-Martin, Schlegel, Savy, Esquiros, 
Jean Reynaud, and Pezzani continued that tradition 


370 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


in the nineteenth century. But let us say again that 
this book is not written from the philosophic stand¬ 
point, but from the exclusively scientific standpoint 
of experimental observation. 

But it is time to conclude. Everywhere in nature, 
in the directive force of terrestrial life, in the signs 
of instinct in plants and animals, in the general 
spirit of things, in humanity, in the cosmic universe, 
everywhere there is a psychic element which reveals 
itself more and more in modern studies, notably in 
the researches concerning telepathy and those unex¬ 
plained phenomena dealt with in the present volume. 
This element, this principle, is still unknown to con¬ 
temporary science; but, as in many other cases, it 
was guessed by the ancients. I invent nothing. 

Besides the four elements, air, water, earth, and 
fire, the ancients did, in fact, assume a fifth, of an 
immaterial kind, which they called animus, the world 
soul, the animating principle, the ether. “ Aristotle,” 
writes Cicero ( Tuscal. Queest., i, 22), “having enu¬ 
merated the four kinds of material elements, is 
moved to assume a fifth essence, quinta natura, 
which gives rise to the soul. For as thought and the 
intellectual faculties cannot reside in any of the 
material elements, we must admit a fifth kind which 
had not yet received a name and which he called 
entelechia —that is to say, eternal and continual 
movement. ,, The four material elements of the 
ancients have been dissected by modern analysis. 
The fifth is perhaps more fundamental. 

Virgil wrote in the 2Eneid (Book VI.) these ad¬ 
mirable verses which everybody knows: 


Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


371 


Let us also remember the Natural Question of 
Seneca and the Bream of Scipio, by Macrobius 

M). 

The Latin grammarian, Martianus Capella, like 
all the Christian authors of the first centuries, 
pointed out this directive force, also calling it the 
fifth element, and designating it by the name 
ether. 7 

A Roman Emperor well known to the Parisians, 
Julian the Apostate, celebrates this fifth principle 
in his speech in honour of the Royal Sun, sometimes 
calling it the solar principle, sometimes the soul of 
the world or the intellectual principle, and some¬ 
times the ether. 8 

This psychic element is not mistaken for G-od by 
the philosophers. It forms part of nature. 

We find it everywhere. Among other examples, 
it figures remarkably in the trial of Joan of Arc and 
in that of Socrates. 

I repeat it: In proposing to admit scientifically 
the assistance of this fifth element, the psychic ele¬ 
ment, as a conclusion of the observations studied 
in this work, we do not invent anything new. We 
simply re-establish a forgotten principle. 

The human faculties are more extensive than is 
generally admitted. On the present question the 
judicious opinion of a man like Jean Jaures (whose 
stupid assassination in the first days of the war is 
deplored by all honest people) is not to be despised. 
In his book La Realite du Monde Sensible (1902) 
he wrote: 

As the brain is enclosed in a resistant organic envelope 
and is apparently closed, imagination easily figures it as 
isolated from the world. But in reality it is quite possible 
that the brain is perpetually mixed and confounded with 


7 See Kopp’s edition, Frankfort, 1836. 

s See CEuvres Completes de VEmpereur Julien , 3 vols., Paris, 1821. 



372 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


what we call the world by a continual and subtle exchange 
of secret activity. 

If it is true, as is declared by many witnesses whose 
good faith it is difficult to doubt, that the human organism 
can develop in certain cases a magnetism capable of lifting 
a table, since it is particularly by the application of will¬ 
power that these phenomena are produced, and since it is 
without the knowledge of their own organism that these 
people develop an unknown motive power acting on ex¬ 
ternal objects, it appears that cerebral energy can radiate 
far outside its focus. It seems also as if the ego can act 
upon matter without, at least consciously, having recourse 
to its organism, which is no longer an active instrument 
but a passive conductor. The phenomenon of clairvoyance 
in certain special hypnotic states seems proved nowadays. 
It is permitted to certain subjects to see and read through 
obstacles which to us are opaque. Thus the opacity of 
matter is only relative. And since, in our imagination, 
what most separates our brain from the surrounding world 
is the opacity of our organism, that opacity, on disappear¬ 
ing, leaves the cerebral focus and the universe in immediate 
contact, even to our imagination. Thus the brain can 
infinitely surpass the organism, and can radiate, palpitate, 
and act beyond its limits. The brain no longer appears 
like a self-contained organ, closed up in a hard cavity; 
we see, even physiologically, the individual ego grow and, 
without losing its necessary attachment to a particular 
organism, create for itself outside the organism an infinite 
sphere of activity. 

When one subject transmits to another an idea, an im¬ 
pression, or a command without words, there is evidently 
a radiation of thought into space, and this radiation places 
two brains into immediate relationship. These facts raise 
the question of free-will in a new and acute form. But 
they have another and a higher significance. They show 
the outside man there are powers extraordinary and un¬ 
known, which are dormant or nearly so in his normal state 
but show themselves in certain states which we call ab¬ 
normal. There is within us an Unknown Ego which can 
exercise a direct action on matter, which can raise up a 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


373 


strange body as if it were its own body, pierce with its 
gaze the opacity of an obstacle and cnll across space the 
unexpressed thought of another ego. 

When normal man assimilates the powers of the mag¬ 
netic or hypnotic state, see how in human life the indi¬ 
vidual organism will become accessory. No doubt it would 
always present itself to consciousness as the necessary root 
of individuality, but the ego could stir with its own will 
bodies other than its own. It would therefore no longer 
be the exclusive soul of a particular organism, but of all 
things over which it could extend, and if it could expand 
over the whole universe, it would be the world soul. 

A free and independent spirit, Jaures was able 
to see and to judge, and for him the phenomena 
of levitation, of mental and physical action at a 
distance, of telepathy, of vision without eyes, ‘were 
useful in making clear the constitution of the uni¬ 
verse. The human soul is part of the world soul. 

The fifth element, of which we spoke just now, 
contains within itself invisible and unknown intelli¬ 
gences, which are revealed by a certain number of 
cases expounded in this work. The observers and 
witnesses were in full possession of their senses; 
they were observers rather than agents. 

How can we admit the precision of aim described 
on pp. 77-83, without recognising the existence of 
invisible aimers. How can we suppose that an arm¬ 
chair’s placed against the door to keep it shut (p. 
117), or that a key is taken from a door to hit the 
hand of a person wanting to open it (p. 120), or that 
medals are taken from doors where they were 
placed as a protection (p. 128), or chairs ar¬ 
ranged as for a meeting (p. 129), without acknowl¬ 
edging the action of some spirit? Have we not 
seen also a glass taken from a shelf, a bellows taken 
from a fireplace, a broom thrown away, a plate 


374 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


snatched out of hands (p. 137), which are only ex¬ 
plained by the intervention of an invisible force? 
Then a door locked on the inside, cords of bells 
pulled, portraits detached, clocks stopped, and a 
spoon turning by itself in a glass (p. 175)? And 
the anonymous companion of Mme. de Granfort 
(p. 182), the shutters resisting the pushing of Mr. 
Homem Christo (p. 192), the child carried off (p. 
194), the haunting of Miss Bates at Cambridge, (p. 
210), the cousin of M. Legendre (p. 214), and the 
manifestation of young Gamier at Frontignan (p. 
222) ? And Lewis announcing his crushing by a 
train (p. 300)? And the invisible who threw pieces 
of wood about a carpenter’s shop without hurting 
anybody and without revealing his starting-point 
(p. 302)? And the Morton family ghost (p. 312)? 
And that of the Vatas-Simpson family (p. 317), 
etc.? These beings are generally invisible, but 
sometimes visible. 

There we have as many manifestations of think¬ 
ing forces, several of which are identifiable. Are 
these invisible beings strangers to the living, or are 
they sometimes doublings of the spirits of the ex¬ 
perimenters themselves? All we know is that they 
manifest themselves. 

The phenomena we study here are products of 
the universal dynamism into which our five senses 
but place us in very partial relation. 9 We live in 


»There can be no doubt that there are means of perception 
different from our five senses (see Lumen), and I gave irrefutable 
examples of this in my previous psychical works. To those numerous 
examples I shall add the following very curious one, reported to 
one of my friends by Ch. Richet in February, 1905: 

“I had asked to my house at Carqueiranne two of my friends, 
both psychologists, Professor William James and Mr. W. H. Myers, 
for a restful holiday. They were to experiment there with a very 
interesting medium, Mrs. Thomson. I telegraphed to one of my 
friends at Nice, M. Moutonnie, to join them, since those studies 
profoundly interested him. But as I was myself retained at Paris 



THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


375 


the middle of an unexplored world, in which the 
psychic forces play a very insufficient observed part. 

These forms are of an order superior to the 
forces generally analysed in mechanics, physics, and 
chemistry. They have something vital about them, 
and some sort of mentality. This fifth element is 
part of the constitution of the universe. It is the 
link by which beings can communicate across a dis¬ 
tance. It has some analogy with Reichenbach’s 
and du PrePs Od and Hr. JavorskPs geon . Only 
in the last few years have we begun to understand 
it, since the ether and Hertzian waves form part 
of scientific theories. Its universal extension en¬ 
ables us to conceive the existence of an immaterial 
principle. 

Everything, on the other hand, goes to show that 
the purely mechanical explanation of nature is in¬ 
complete and that there is more in the universe 
than just matter. It is not matter which governs 
the universe, it is the dynamic and psychic ele¬ 
ment. 

Matter itself is only a mode of motion, an expres¬ 
sion of force, a manifestation of energy. It evades 
analysis, and takes final refuge in an intangible, 
invisible, and somehow immaterial atom. 

The atom, the basis of matter, has in the last 
fifty years dissolved and become a sort of hypo¬ 
thetical and indefinable vortex. 


he did not go to Carqueiranne. Now Mrs. Thomson, who knew 
nothing, had gone for a walk on the Riviera. In the gardens of 
Monaco she saw on a bench a lady and a gentleman with a small 
dog. With some surprise she distinguished with her inner eye 
the word ‘Carqueiranne’ on the man’s hat. In spite of her natural 
timidity she decided to engage in conversation with the couple, she 
was so much interested. For this purpose she used the little dog 
as an excuse. She asked the man: ‘Do you know Carqueiranne?’ 
My friend was astonished, and exclaimed: ‘Certainly, I was to have 
gone there myself to make the acquaintance of a medium. . . .’ 
‘I am the medium,’ said Mrs. Thomson.” 



376 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


I allow myself to repeat here what I have said 
a hundred times elsewhere: The universe is a 
dynamism. And it seems that everything is elec¬ 
trical. World soul, animal electricity, magnetic 
fluid, Od are diverse names for this same principle 
of movement. The psychic and physical worlds 
are associated. The universe consists of intelli¬ 
gences of all degres, and the cosmos as a whole is 
unexplored. 

The manifestations in haunted houses, often so 
commonplace, so incoherent—like, indeed, those 
spiritualistic experiences in which the self-sugges¬ 
tion of mediums can be eliminated—lead us to con¬ 
sider the value of the forces and invisible intelli¬ 
gences producing them, and take us along another 
path back to the ancient parallel between man and 
the insect. Can it be that the hours, days, and 
weeks, or even the months and years which follow 
death, are but the stages of evolution of the hu¬ 
man chrysalis and not those of the soul entirely 
freed from matter? 

The spirits of all degrees which perpetually pass 
from the material world of life to the invisible 
world are of very varying intellectual values. How 
many remain in the earthplane? How many are 
reincarnated, and when? 

Let us repeat, for the thousandth time, that the 
intrinsic nature of the human soul, in life as in 
death, is still entirely unknown to us. What is im¬ 
mortality? 

One day Senator Naquet came to me vividly im¬ 
pressed with a conversation he had just had with 
Victor Hugo. “We were talking,’’ he said, “of the 
plurality of worlds and about your Lumen. ‘Are 
we all immortal?’ he suddenly asked me point- 
blank. ‘But, dear Master,’ I replied, ‘either one 
survives or one does not, one or the other. I ad- 


THE SEARCH FOR CAUSES 


377 


mit that for my part I do not much believe in it.’ 
‘There are differences and degrees/ said he; ‘as 
for myself, I feel indestructible. ’ 

“I am sure,” continued Naquet, “that for him 
immortality was a personal certainty, but I thought 
that was some sort of individual pride.” 

“The question of the inequality of souls has al¬ 
ready occurred to me,” I replied to Naquet; “it 
seems worth considering. No, it is not pride in 
Victor Hugo, it is a sentiment of justice, for he 
knows well that his works prove his personal in¬ 
dividuality. 9 9 

That conversation took place about 1880. Over 
forty years afterwards I am of the same opinion, 
fortified by my psychic studies. No soul seems 
to be destroyed. But are many souls conscious 
of their spiritual existence? Are only those con¬ 
scious of it which were so before death? Variety 
continues. Educated and ignorant, intelligent and 
idiotic, good and evil. The guillotine does not make 
an evil- doer into a saint. The incoherent phenom¬ 
ena of haunted houses agree with this view. 

We conclude: If the universe is a dynamism, 
if the cosmos deserves its name (order), if the 
unknown world is more important than the known 
world, if there are intelligent forces and invisible 
beings—we must discard the denials of Naquet, 
Berthelot, Le Dantec, Littre, Cabanis, Lalande, 
Voltaire and the anatomists in favour of the con¬ 
victions of Victor Hugo, Pasteur, Ampere, Goethe, 
Euler, Pascal, Newton and the spiritualists. For 
these penetrate the crust of appearances and dis¬ 
cover in the final analysis of things the fundamental 
invisible dynamism. 








EPILOGUE 


THE UNKNOWN OF YESTERDAY IS THE TRUTH 
OF TO-MORROW 

Progress surrounded by obstacles — Lavoisier’s Report to 
the Academy of Sciences on meteorites. 

T HE Unknown of yesterday is the Truth of 
to-morrow. 

We must study everything, discuss every¬ 
thing, analyse everything, without prejudice. The 
history of the sciences shows us a great number of 
eminent men, superior spirits, who were stopped 
in the path of progress by the idea that science had 
spoken her last word. In astronomy, in physics, 
in chemistry, in geology, in all branches of human 
knowledge, it would be easy to fill several pages 
with the names of famous people who thought sci¬ 
ence would not pass the limits obtained in their 
own time, and that there was nothing left to dis¬ 
cover. Among savants of the present day it would 
not be difficult to cite a number of distinguished 
men who are firmly convinced that in the spheres 
which they have mastered there is nothing more 
to be found. 

We must only admit that which has been proved. 
We must be neither credulous nor incredulous. We 
must study without prejudices and, above all, we 
must remain free and independent. It is quite nat¬ 
ural that official bodies should be conservative. The 
important thing for the progress of ideas is that 
we should not be closed up, should not be blinded 
by a classical attitude to the evidence of facts. This 

379 


380 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


has happened in astronomy, physics, chemistry, and 
medicine, in all the sciences, in “phlogistics,” in 
steam, in electricity, and in the matter of meteorites. 
A great and noble spirit, the immortal Lavoisier 
himself, who had destroyed phlogiston and created 
chemistry, remained in the eighteenth century 
bound by the ideas of his time. Charged by the 
Academy of Sciences with the preparation of a 
report on a fall of meteorites which had been clearly 
observed, he wrote in 1769 the following document, 
which must be a lesson for us all. I shall here give 
a verbatim extract worthy of being preserved for 
our instruction. This document is historical and 
teaches us much. It is taken from the official edition 
of the works of Lavoisier (Paris: Imperial Press, 
1868, vol. iv): 

Report on a Stone alleged to have fallen from the 
Shy during a Thunderstorm . 

We, M. Fongeroux, M. Cadet, and I, have been charged 
with submitting to the Academy an account of an ob¬ 
servation communicated by M. PAbbe Bachelay on a stone 
alleged to have fallen from the sky during a thunderstorm. 
There is probably no stone with a longer history than 
the thunderstone and thunderbolt, if we were to collect 
all that has been written by the various authors. We 
may judge of this from the large number of substances 
designated by that name. Yet, in spite of the belief of 
the ancients, true physicists have always been doubtful 
of the existence of these stones. We may find some par¬ 
ticulars in a memoir written by M. Lemery, printed among 
other Academy transactions in 1700. 

If the existence of thunderbolts was regarded as doubt¬ 
ful at a time when physicists had hardly any idea of the 
nature of lightning, their attitude seems even more rea¬ 
sonable nowadays when they have discovered the identity 
of that phenomenon with electricity. However, we shall 
faithfully report the fact communicated to us by M. 


EPILOGUE 381 

Bachelay, and we shall then see what conclusions we can 
draw. 

On September 13, 1768, at half-past four in the after¬ 
noon, a stormcloud appeared in the direction of the castle 
of La Chevallerie, near Luce, a small village of Maine, 
and a sharp thunderclap was heard which resembled the 
report of a gun. Then, over a space of some two leagues 
and a half, a considerable whistling sound was heard in the 
air, without any appearance of fire. It resembled the 
lowing of a cow so closely that several people were de¬ 
ceived by it. Several crofters who were harvesting in the 
parish of Perigue, about three hours from Luce, having 
heard the same noise, looked up and saw an opaque body 
describing a curve, and falling on a meadow near the 
main road to Le Mans, beside which they were working. 
They all ran up to the spot and found a sort of stone 
about half buried in the earth, but it was so hot and 
burning that it was impossible to touch it. Then they 
were all seized with terror and ran away. But on re¬ 
turning some time afterwards they saw that it had not 
moved, but it had cooled down sufficiently to allow them 
to examine it more closely. The stone weighed about 
seven pounds and a half, and was of a triangular form— 
i.e., it presented three more or less rounded horns, one 
of which had pierced the turf at the moment of falling. 
All that portion which had entered the ground was of a 
grey or ashen colour, while the rest, which had been 
exposed to air, was extremely black. M. l’Abbe Bachelay, 
having procured a piece of this stone, presented it to the 
Academy, and seems to have expressed a wish that its na¬ 
ture might be determined. 

We shall give an account of the experiments we have 
made with this object. They will help us to determine 
what we must think of such a singular fact. 

The substance of the stone is pale ash-grey. On look¬ 
ing at the grain with a magnifying-glass it is seen to be 
studded with a multitude of small bright metallic points 
of a pale-yellow colour. The part of its outer surface 
which, according to the Abbe Bachelay, was not embedded 
in the ground, is covered with a very thin layer of a 


382 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


black substance, inflated in some places, which appears 
to have been fused. On striking the inside of the stone 
with steel no sparks were drawn; but if the outer coat¬ 
ing, which seems to have been exposed to fire, was struck, 
a few sparks resulted. 

We tested the stone in the hydrostatic balance and 
found that it lost in water very nearly two-sevenths of 
its weight, or, more accurately, that its specific weight 
compared with water was as 3,535 to 1,000. This specific 
gravity was already much higher than what is usual in 
silicious stones, so it indicated a considerable proportion 
of metallic parts. 

Having reduced the stone to powder we combined it 
directly with black flux and obtained a black glass quite 
similar in appearance to the crust covering the surface 
of the stone. 

After calcination we proceeded to reduction. We only 
obtained a black alkaline mass, and hence concluded that 
the metal contained in the stone is iron, combined with 
the alkali. 

It were superfluous to reproduce here the course 
of the chemical analysis of this mysterious stone, 
an analysis in which we find Lavoisier chiefly pre¬ 
occupied with the popular belief that the stone 
might be a product of lightning. Let us proceed 
to his conclusion: 

We may conclude, therefore [he writes], from the analy¬ 
sis alone, and independently of many other reasons which 
it were useless to specify, that the stone presented by M. 
Bachelay does not owe its origin to lightning, that it did 
not fall from the sky, and neither was it formed by fusion 
due to lightning, as might have been supposed; we may 
conclude that this stone is nothing but a sort of pyritic 
sandstone, which has nothing unusual about it except the 
hepatic smell which it gives off on being dissolved in spirits 
of salt—a phenomenon which does not happen in ordinary 
pyrites. The opinion which seems to us the most probable 
and agrees best with principles accepted in physics, with 


EPILOGUE 


383 


the facts reported by the Abbe Bachelay, and with our 
own experiments, is that this stone, which was perhaps 
covered by a thin layer of earth or turf, was struck by 
lightning, and thus put in evidence. The heat would 
have been great enough to fuse the surface of the part 
struck, but it would not have continued long enough to 
penetrate into the interior, so that the stone was not de¬ 
composed. The considerable quantity of metallic matter 
which it contained, opposing less resistance than another 
body to the current of electric substance, may have even 
contributed to determining the direction of the lightning 
flash. 

It is known that it prefers to pass towards the bodies 
which are most easily electrified by contact. We must 
not lose sight of a singular fact. M. Morand, jun., has 
sent us a piece of a stone from the neighbourhood of 
Coutances, which was also alleged to have fallen from 
the sky; it was found very much like M. Bachelay*s stone. 
It is also a sandstone permeated with iron pyrites, and 
only differs from it in not giving the smell of liver of 
sulphur with spirits of salt. We believe we can only 
conclude from this resemblance that lightning falls by 
preference on metallic substances, and especially those of 
a pyritous nature. 

However fabulous this class of occurrences may ap¬ 
pear to be, since they may contribute to the elucidation of 
the history of thunderbolts by means of the considerations 
and experiments detailed above, we consider it appropri¬ 
ate to mention them to the Academy. 

This report of Lavoisier to the Academic des 
Sciences gives rise to reflections closely connected 
with the researches under discussion in this book. 
Witnesses saw the stone fall, in broad daylight, on 
September 13, 1768, in the open country. They 
picked it up; it is true. It is examined and analysed, 
and the conclusion drawn is that it did not fall from 
the sky. Preconceived ideas prevent recognition of 
the truth. Popular opinion associating these stones 


384 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


with thunder was wrong, but there was no idea of 
challenging the existing theory and conceiving the 
possibility of another explanation. Human testi¬ 
mony counts for nothing, and, even in our day, a 
certain school inclined to paradox continues to teach 
that witnesses, whoever they may be, can prove 
nothing. 

Certainly, human testimony is fallible, as anyone 
may be mistaken, and it is not scientific to trust it 
blindly; but there is a great gap between that and 
the attitude of denying everything. Now, this was 
not the first time that one or several stones were 
seen to fall from the sky, picked up, and preserved. 
To cite but one instance (the most celebrated): On 
November 7, 1491, at Ensisheim (Haut-Rhin), an 
enormous stone fell in front of a whole army, near 
Maximilian I., the Roman Emperor. They are seen 
nearly every year somewhere or other. Even in 
1768 another one fell at Aire (Pas-de-Calais), and 
another at Maurkirchen in Bavaria. Lavoisier 
knew this, and yet he wrote that 4 ‘true physicists 
have always regarded as doubtful the existence of 
these stones.’’ This perennial blindness towards 
all that is unknown has constantly hindered the 
progress of science. We see at the same time how 
imprudent it is to form premature explanatory 
theories, for this explanation of meteorites has to 
some extent negatived the judgments of the Acade- 
mie des Sciences . 

Let us distrust premature theories; this historical 
case enjoins it upon us. 

Human beings of all degrees of intelligence who 
still think that metapsychical phenomena are in¬ 
admissible, because to admit them throws doubt 
on certain principles of classical teaching, should 
also remember that all discoveries began by being 
denied. 


EPILOGUE 


385 


For thousands of years meteorites had fallen from 
the sky before hundreds of witnesses, a great num¬ 
ber had been picked up, several were preserved 
in churches, museums and collections. But there 
was still lacking in 1769 an independent spirit to 
confirm them. This man arrived in 1794. It was 
Chladni. 

I throw no stones at Lavoisier, nor at the Acade¬ 
mic des Sciences, nor at any person, but at the 
tyranny of prejudice. They did not believe, they 
would not believe, that minerals would fall from the 
sky. It seemed contrary to common sense. For 
example, Gassendi was one of the most independent 
and learned intellects of the seventeenth century. 
A meteorite weighing sixty-six pounds fell in Prov¬ 
ence, in 1627, from a clear sky. Gassendi saw it, 
touched it, and examined it, yet he attributed it 
to some terrestrial eruption. 

The Academie des Sciences at last recognised, on 
the report of its own commissioner Biot, the reality 
of meteorites at the time of the fall at Laigle 
(Orne), on April 26, 1803. The stones had been 
picked up, still hot, by a number of witnesses who 
had narrowly escaped being stoned to death by 
the heavens. Since that time it has very often had 
to engage in the study of meteorites. 1 In spite 
of all, the world goes forward, and the truth forces 
itself upon us. 

Peripatetic professors of the time of Galileo 
stated dogmatically that there could be no spots 


i The very day that I received the proof of this page (September, 
1923) I read in the Comptes rendus de VAcademie des Sciences of 
September 10 an account by Messrs. Mengaud and Mourie of the fall 
of a curious meteorite, weighing thirty-one pounds, which fell at 
Saint-Sauveur (Haute-Garonne) on July 10, 1914, near two farm 
labourers. The analysis has just been completed by M. A. Lacroix. 
Since 1803 science has made useful progress from these verifying 
statements. 



386 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


on the sun. The Brocken spectre, the Fata Mor¬ 
gana, and the mirage were denied by a great num¬ 
ber of intelligent people as long as they were un¬ 
explained. It is thought necessary to be able to 
explain a fact before admitting its reality. 

It was not so very long ago (1890) that ball¬ 
lightning was questioned at a full meeting of the 
Academie des Sciences in Paris by the very mem¬ 
ber of the Institute who ought to have known most 
about it, Mascart, director of the Central Meteoro¬ 
logical Office. He maintained that my conviction 
was not well founded, although I had quoted so 
many examples in my works. 

The history of the progress of science shows 
throughout that great and fruitful results may arise 
from simple and commonplace observations. In 
the domain of scientific study nothing should be 
disdained. 

We should always observe this double principle: 

Deny nothing a priori. 

Admit nothing without proof. 

In 1831, Dr. Castel said, at the Acadlemie die 
Medecine, after the reading of a report of a com¬ 
mission of this Society on animal magnetism: 

If the majority of the facts stated were true, then half 
the knowledge acquired in physics would be invalidated. 
Therefore their propagation should be guarded against 
in printing the report. 

The advice of the Medical Faculty of Bavaria 
against the introduction of railways offers a typical 
example of this antipathy for everything new. That 
learned body supposed that such rapid movement 
would infallibly produce cerebral derangements in 
the travellers and giddiness in the onlookers. They 
recommended that at least a wooden partition should 
be erected on each side of the railway. 


EPILOGUE 


387 


We may also remember the opposition excited 
by Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the 
blood and, that he was treated as a lunatic by the 
savants of his time; also the opposition to Jenner’s 
vaccination proposals, etc. The invention of pho¬ 
tography passed through the same ordeal 2 in the 
days of Niepce and of Daguerre. Yet what a world 
of revelations has it not opened to science! We 
need only think of astronomy, from the sun to the 
nebulae. 

The reception which the savants accorded to the 
discovery of Jupiter’s satellites, and their refusal 
to look through Galileo’s telescope, has not been 
forgotten. At the time of the discovery of the 
bacillus of tuberculosis, did not a well-known pro¬ 
fessor, an opponent of bacteriology, refuse to look 
through the microscope at a bacillus culture which 
his assistant wished to show him? Dr. Schrenck- 
Notzing has recalled the judgment given in the 
Grenzboten by an eminent savant, which indicates 
the same attitude of mind: “I shall not believe in 
hypnotic suggestion until I see a case; and I 
shall never see one, for I ignore it on “prin¬ 
ciple. ’ ’ 


2Mme. Blavatsky tells (in Isis TJnveiled) an anecdote current 
among the friends of Daguerre between 1838 and 1840. During a 
soiree at Mme. Daguerre’s, some two months before the presen¬ 
tation of the new process before the Academie des Sciences by 
Arago (January, 1839), the latter had a serious consultation with 
one of the medical celebrities of the time concerning her husband’s 
mental condition. After explaining her husband’s aberration, she 
added, with tears in her eyes, that the most convincing proof of 
Daguerre’s insanity was his firm conviction that he would succeed 
in nailing his own shadow on the wall or fix it on a magical 
metallic plate. The doctor listened attentively, and replied that 
on his part he had lately observed symptoms in Daguerre which 
to him amounted to an irrefutable proof of lunacy. He ended 
the conversation by advising her to send her husband quietly and 
without delay to Bic^tre. Two months afterwards a vivid interest 
arose in the world of science and art after an exhibition of pictures 
prepared by the new process, and photography, already discovered 
by Niepce, was recognised. 



388 HAUNTED HOUSES 

And the great physicist, Lord Kelvin, wrote the 
following: 3 

I make a point of repudiating any appearance of a 
tendency to accept this miserable superstition of animal 
magnetism, table-turning, Spiritualism, mesmerism, clair¬ 
voyance, and raps. There is no mystical sixth sense. 
Clairvoyance and the rest are the result of malobserva- 
tion, with a touch of voluntary self-deception, acting 
upon simple and trusting souls. 

Such is the degree of blindness to which one of 
the greatest intellects of the age was reduced. He 
did not deign to notice, or examine, or try to un¬ 
derstand. 

We can add the name of Ernest Haeckel to the 
list of savants blinded by a false pride, who have 
denied the existence of unexplained phenomena. 
On one unfortunate page of his interesting work 
The Riddle of the Universe, after lightly and hastily 
touching on mediumistic phenomena, which he 
classes as aberrations of overwrought minds, he 
speaks of thought-readers in these terms: 

‘ 4 That which is called telepathy (or thought 
transference without a material medium) does not 
exist any more than spirits or ghosts, etc.” 

In spite of Haeckel and his colleagues, thought- 
transference, hypnotism, and many other psychic 
manifestations are now acknowledged by eminent 
men, and the psychologist has taken courage to 
interest himself in problems which arise in a field 
of study hitherto considered a mass of trickery and 
fraud. Let us rather reason as Jaures did just 
now. 

We must remark again, with Ch. Eichet, that the 


3 See Myers, Society for Psychical Research, xiv, 1904, p. 365; 

and Richet, Traite de m6tapsychique, p. 6. 



EPILOGUE 389 

comprehension of psychic phenomena is beyond the 
capacity of a certain number of men. 

In the first place, there are first-class men of 
science, high officials in education or administration, 
who are very competent in certain subjects, very 
upright, of a ripe and usually well-founded judg¬ 
ment, but who do not go outside their sphere, and 
for whom science has said its last word on every¬ 
thing. They are convinced that the laws of nature 
are known! This class of people was opposed to 
new discoveries throughout the ages, the movement 
of the earth, the telescope, the circulation of the 
blood, meteorites, vaccination, electricity, gas light¬ 
ing, railways, photography, submarine telegraphy, 
the phonograph, the cinematograph, aviation, etc. 
They would never devote their time to these things 
because they were sure they were impossible, and 
they always obstinately adhere to a scepticism which 
to them seems rational. 

Then there are the shrewd persons of business 
ability, false, knavish, and crooked people, given to 
exploiting their neighbours, convinced that it is 
better to rob than to be robbed, and setting un¬ 
scrupulous traps for others. These people can see 
nothing but cleverness, falsehood, and deception 
in these things. 

Lastly, from another point of view, but equally 
incapable of judging the phenomena, there are the 
simpletons, the credulous, who have no critical 
minds, who make a blind faith of Spiritualism— 
a religion indeed—and cannot exactly analyse the 
effects to be observed. 

Yet there are also the Free, and they surely 
form a notable proportion of the human species. 

Let us acknowledge, in any case, that people in 
general are incapable of a sustained attention, and 
that in the terrestrial human race, as a whole, in- 


390 


HAUNTED HOUSES 


difference to the knowledge of truth is almost uni¬ 
versal. This indifference perpetuates the amazing 
ignorance which every shrewd observer encounters 
in all scientific and historical fields. After so many 
centuries of progress, so many discoveries, this 
universal ignorance is truly fantastic. Nobody 
wants to learn. The inhabitants of our planet live 
without knowing where they are and without hav¬ 
ing the curiosity to ask. 

The columns of the Press are occupied with ma¬ 
terial pursuits, races of all kinds, millions in bets, 
speed tests, sports, boxing, pugilistic matches, spec¬ 
ulations, the theatre, the cinema, the films, new 
dances, the nude in the music-halls, adulteries, 
crimes of passion, assassinations, political speeches, 
advertisements. As regards scientific progress and 
general instruction, they are conspicuous by their 
absence. 

It is particularly in psychic matters that this ig¬ 
norance is remarkable and regrettable, for we are 
all personally concerned there. The psychical 
world is vaster and more immense than the physical 
world. 

A last word. It is well to know this psychical 
world. We are far from having exhausted its study 
in this or the preceding volumes. We have not been 
able, as we had hoped to be, to include the numerous 
and incontestable observations concerning appari¬ 
tions of the dead to the dying, which are evidence 
of the survival of those dead, and have their special 
value. Neither have we been able to concern our¬ 
selves with the phantoms themselves, those which 
have been seen and heard. There we have a whole 
field of complex studies which opens unexpected 
horizons. It seems to me that the time has come 
to devote, in spite of the apparent paradox, a 
special volume to ghosts, methodically discussed, 


EPILOGUE 391 

in the light of observational science. That will be 
the subject of my next work. 

Yes, the Unknown World is vaster and more im¬ 
portant than the Known. 


CD 


THE END 

















































o 




<£-% * 

.? aV </> 

•r % 

1 * * ' s , V' | u ^2** y o * x * *jG 


^ V 


s 


0 O. 




'*>'*% * aH °' v x *V*« 

' /^A . 


c5> y ^ 

* *V ^ * 
0° . * ' . * 


° 0 


l *< 



a0 



* 

Vo 4 ^ 

• .V ^ , 

»n w & V t , * s ^ * 3 n 0°’ 

<v cv y> « Y * 0 


>© 


t 0 r . 

*v *. v 'p v * 

<*'* * C^W/^s * <* a*. 

*' *W‘ ♦*'* 

S N \'^ O. ^ 0 * \ ^ (a' ^ /y 

A ^ °0 / c » " 5?> „% ' * * A 

v . - *fe o< ; ' *«*- ^ 



. $ * v v - : 

\<A .v», % '”• ‘* _* G 1 




>, ^ *0^0° A* - ^ *■» V < |»' A "o, '<y '".•j* ftV <%. <• 

v<^ ? 

N 



^ <*V * 


^ * a H o ’ V * I 

*\Lkw * c ^ v\*** 0 / 


Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. L 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 


,\\' v ^ Treatment Date: Nov. 2004 

' *' .-i* .: 'A ''. /> \K 


PreservationTechnologies 


A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive _ 

Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 




</* 







C' v *."<>* > sy v s l/>J* ^ v ^.-, 

. 1 ' J + ^ = % $ ;. 

* V> 'S' -> o P‘ '^r-. o ■■,, . ■ ■' * ,<^ 

- ^ sS^MlilP^ . <v ^ ^ > 7 ^ 

-0* ^ 7 / , v c S y o * K J3 n N c ** * * S A \^ ^ V » fi 

■"/% ** V .-'ip, % y .‘- *♦ ' 



aV p, 

«\v J 



> V 



V •• <*>°-,^. ,;v—v.—. 

*y *<? 





’%.*• * ‘**</!• **. . V' ** ' 

o 

w : 

H •/. 


0> V- 

NT ^ X- A 

, * C^v \ (A-’ 

V "" *’ V^* “*> * * 1 '\/o v ^ T ^ . 

/«.;• <S '**' / % f p- .‘!T.% ^ '• 


Y. I 8 





0 * L ' M 

o~ ,-0 > - 0 N 1 



% oP 

^ »».*»•$? r , 

* * 4 ^ a 9‘ ^ s ~ r * C' 


^ ** 

\V ^ tf. 

<* flj C^ >U 

q A * 3 N 0 *- ^ 



t v««, <* / **'\^ A s -‘" 

** * 

.WIYML * '^. ■A' 






































